The problem with these arguments is they can basically be summed up as this:
"Look at this puddle of water. Do you realize how improbable it is that every atom of the ground could possibly be in this exact, perfect shape to produce this exact puddle? The chances of all the atoms just HAPPENING to be arranged in this pattern to perfectly fit the shape of the water are astronomical."
"Dude, water takes the shape of its container. Not the other way around."
"... Oh."
Life adapts to its environment, not the other way around. And if you flip a coin 100 times, the chances of getting that *exact* sequence of coin flips will look so improbable that it could only happen by divine intervention.
And let's imagine that one of those sequences of coin flips gives rise to life. In all circumstances that life exists, it would always seem to those life forms to be improbable. But that's because there is NO life otherwise to observe how probable their non-existence is.
And, ultimately, no matter how mathematically unlikely it is... It's still possible. Known possibility is always more likely than stuff that might not even exist. If I flip a coin 50 times and get heads 50 times - that's very unlikely. But it's not suddenly grounds for believing there's a magical coin-flipping rabbit secretly controlling the coin flips. It's more reasonable to believe in some natural, demonstrable explanation.
And if you flip a coin 100 times, the chances of getting that *exact* sequence of coin flips will look so improbable that it could only happen by divine intervention.
Errr... If you were to perform, say, 100 flips and all of them came up heads, then that is indeed extremely improbable. It would be so improbable that you would seek alternative explanations aside from chance that such an improbable event occurred. Probably the first hypothesis would be, "This is a trick coin."
This is the problem with your analogy. It is very unlikely that you'll get 100 flips of heads in a row. On the other hand, we have no means of assessing how probable the conditions that resulted in life forming on this planet were.
The problem with these arguments is they can basically be summed up as this:
"Look at this puddle of water. Do you realize how improbable it is that every atom of the ground could possibly be in this exact, perfect shape to produce this exact puddle? The chances of all the atoms just HAPPENING to be arranged in this pattern to perfectly fit the shape of the water are astronomical."
"Dude, water takes the shape of its container. Not the other way around."
"... Oh."
Life adapts to its environment, not the other way around. And if you flip a coin 100 times, the chances of getting that *exact* sequence of coin flips will look so improbable that it could only happen by divine intervention.
And let's imagine that one of those sequences of coin flips gives rise to life. In all circumstances that life exists, it would always seem to those life forms to be improbable. But that's because there is NO life otherwise to observe how probable their non-existence is.
And, ultimately, no matter how mathematically unlikely it is... It's still possible. Known possibility is always more likely than stuff that might not even exist. If I flip a coin 50 times and get heads 50 times - that's very unlikely. But it's not suddenly grounds for believing there's a magical coin-flipping rabbit secretly controlling the coin flips. It's more reasonable to believe in some natural, demonstrable explanation.
Fair enough. Blinking Spirit and yourself have changed my views on the above topic.
I still think there is reasonable room for God and I haven't converted from an agnostic to an atheist (yet lol). There are some questions I was wondering if you could answer for me using some of the more common scientific theories. While you answer, I would also appreciate it if you would also explain to me why it is completely unreasonable for a possible spiritual explanation.
1) Where does matter come from? I realize it was spread across the universe by the big bang but where did the original hunk of exploding matter come from? Doesn't it have to have come from somewhere?
2) Why do the laws of the universe exist the way they do? We can observe, learn from and test the laws of Physics and Chemistry but why does it work the way it does? Why does biology need to reproduce and evolve? I understand how it works but not why?
3) Where does conciseness come from?
4) Why does the placebo effect work?
5) I realize that near death experiences (NDE's) are easily explained by hallucinations caused by the brain shutting down, but why do so many people experience similar hallucinations. Many palliative nurses report their patients have spoken to someone (often a loved one) to take them to the other side just before death. I realize that its most likely explained by the brain shutting down, but its seems odd to me that so many people see similar hallucinations. Is it completely unreasonable for "the other side" to exist?
I'm not religious, at all. I haven't had any sort of religious experience or examination that didn't result in unhappiness, unanswered questions, and a general feeling of being lied to.
And, despite what I'm about to say, I don't think me or anyone else here begrudges the religious for being religious. Only for assaulting others that don't follow and/or hold the same beliefs. Which (frankly) falls more on the person than the idea.
But there are things that we believe in that don't have empirical evidence, even for the non-religious. It's a wonderful Terry Pratchett quote.
Quote from Hogfather by Terry Pratchett »
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
It's a paragraph that has stuck with me.
Because regardless of whether you believe in a higher power, there is almost definitely something you believe in that can't be touched, seen, smelled, tasted, or heard.
How could we have morality without religion?
Religions are social constructs, they don't create morality, their morality IS societal morality. Religious beliefs reflect human behavioural trends. Besides, many religious texts hold very questionable moral content.
At this time I will only debate this point.
To say that religious beliefs reflect human behavioral trends (in regards to morality) is absolutely absurd.
If you go out and kidnap and rape a 10 year old girl and then kill her in cold blood, it is WRONG....It is a SIN. I don't care what culture or time in history it may be. No decent human being has ever or is ever going to be ok with this and call it a 'cultural trend' making it ok to partake in.
That is why God gave us His Word in the scriptures....He taught us what is right and wrong. There is no guessing as to what is moral and what is not normal. It's all been given to us.
@Robert_G
The bible says murder, theft etc is wrong because that was part of the societal morality. People didn't need the Bible to convince them off basic moral rules.
The bible instead of containing sophisticated morality, is ripe with torture, rape, slavery and genocide. Why have Christians turned away from this? Because they don't get their morality from the bible. They may reference parts of it, but they are moral before they ever read the bible. Morality is a basic human instinct, a social survival mechanism.
While you answer, I would also appreciate it if you would also explain to me why it is completely unreasonable for a possible spiritual explanation.
The first problem is that a "spiritual explanation" is not an explanation. Like I said above, it only increases the number of things that need to be explained.
The second problem is that spiritualism seems like a complete mismatch for the subjects at hand. We're getting pretty deep into theoretical physics here. The workings of cosmology and quantum mechanics are bizarre, alien, and counterintuitive to human minds, the more so the further down you go. So to find something as familiar as a humanlike spirit at the bottom of everything just seems patently absurd. And make no mistake, conventional depictions of God are extremely humanlike. He thinks, perceives, emotes, plans, and communicates. Humans do those sorts of things. Nano-wormholes in the quantum foam don't. Going into cosmology and looking for an entity with these qualities is like going to Mars and looking for a bar with your favorite microbrew. Sure, it's logically possible, but realistically, it's just parochial and naïve. Anthropomorphization on the grandest scale.
1) Where does matter come from? I realize it was spread across the universe by the big bang but where did the original hunk of exploding matter come from? Doesn't it have to have come from somewhere?
Nobody knows. And by that I mean both "nobody knows where it came from" and "nobody knows if it had to come from anywhere". The key discovery here is actually a mathematical breakthrough, Noether's Theorem. Emmy Noether proved that the physical conservation laws actually derive from symmetry laws. Of particular interest, conservation of mass-energy derives from symmetry of time. What this means is that where there is no symmetry of time, for instance at the beginning of time, then there need be no conservation of mass-energy.
2) Why do the laws of the universe exist the way they do? We can observe, learn from and test the laws of Physics and Chemistry but why does it work the way it does?
Nobody knows. Looking at Noether's Theorem again, it provides an intriguing hint that some of the laws may be derivable from mathematics. But so far it remains just a hint. Nobody has come close to grounding any of the apparently-arbitrary physical constants in mathematical logic. So far this remains a mystery.
This, at least, there is an easy answer to: because if it didn't, it wouldn't be biology. Biological things don't need to reproduce and evolve. Rather, we see things that reproduce and evolve, and slap the label "biology" on them.
Your brain is a computer. It is running a program. That program contains a model of itself. That is your consciousness. There is still a lot we don't know about how this works, but we're now pretty confident about the basic scheme.
If you try to explain consciousness in terms of a spirit inhabiting the body, you run into what is known as the homunculus problem: you now have to answer the question of where the spirit's consciousness comes from. Is it itself inhabited by another, smaller spirit? Okay, where does that spirit's consciousness come from? And so on ad infinitum.
Endorphins. Remember that the brain runs on and produces a chemical pharmacopoeia. It doesn't need magic to affect the state of the body; affecting the state of the body is its regular physiological job.
5) I realize that near death experiences (NDE's) are easily explained by hallucinations caused by the brain shutting down, but why do so many people experience similar hallucinations. Many palliative nurses report their patients have spoken to someone (often a loved one) to take them to the other side just before death. I realize that its most likely explained by the brain shutting down, but its seems odd to me that so many people see similar hallucinations. Is it completely unreasonable for "the other side" to exist?
It is as reasonable as it is reasonable to expect that the Mona Lisa would continue to exist in some magical, invisible place after a vandal burned it. The Mona Lisa, like your brain, is matter arranged in a very specific pattern. The pattern is important, but so is the matter; you couldn't have any pattern without it. And think about it. If you could have the pattern without the matter, why bother with the matter in the first place? If we have immaterial souls, why do we have bodies?
People experiencing similar hallucinations are no stranger than football players displaying similar neurological symptoms: our brains are all pretty similar to each other, so if you subject them to similar forms of trauma you can often expect similar results.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
The second problem is that spiritualism seems like a complete mismatch for the subjects at hand. We're getting pretty deep into theoretical physics here. The workings of cosmology and quantum mechanics are bizarre, alien, and counterintuitive to human minds, the more so the further down you go. So to find something as familiar as a humanlike spirit at the bottom of everything just seems patently absurd. And make no mistake, conventional depictions of God are extremely humanlike. He thinks, perceives, emotes, plans, and communicates. Humans do those sorts of things. Nano-wormholes in the quantum foam don't. Going into cosmology and looking for an entity with these qualities is like going to Mars and looking for a bar with your favorite microbrew. Sure, it's logically possible, but realistically, it's just parochial and naïve. Anthropomorphization on the grandest scale.
Firstly, getting "pretty deep into theoretical physics here" doesn't mean i'm off topic. This isn't a thread about theoretical physics, at least I didn't think it was. I was simply responding to DJK3654's challenge, I don't think I have gone outside the boundaries of it.
Secondly, now you are the one setting up and knocking down straw men. Not all thiests view god as humanlike. Pantheist's for example.
How could we have morality without religion?
Religions are social constructs, they don't create morality, their morality IS societal morality. Religious beliefs reflect human behavioural trends. Besides, many religious texts hold very questionable moral content.
At this time I will only debate this point.
To say that religious beliefs reflect human behavioral trends (in regards to morality) is absolutely absurd.
If you go out and kidnap and rape a 10 year old girl and then kill her in cold blood, it is WRONG....It is a SIN. I don't care what culture or time in history it may be. No decent human being has ever or is ever going to be ok with this and call it a 'cultural trend' making it ok to partake in.
That is why God gave us His Word in the scriptures....He taught us what is right and wrong. There is no guessing as to what is moral and what is not normal. It's all been given to us.
Its called Humanism.
Sam Harris has some pretty interesting views on morality. He thinks we could actually make a science out of it.
@FearDReaper
1. Nothing. Literally. A particleless vacuum will periodically split into matter and antimatter. This can be observed.
2. Multiverse theory explains this with infinite diversity- that there exists a universe for every possible set of laws. But ultimately, we really don't know. No matter what explanation for everything you create, you always end up with something just being there. Some force, some principle, some object- that is just there.
3. Biochemistry. We don't see the world and feel the world, we perceive an illusion, a construct of our brain. It feels deeper, seems deeper, but our best understanding of the mind is purely material.
4. http://m.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/mskpages/Placebo_effect?open
5. Hallucinations aren't random. If a lot of people believe in the same thing, when any of them hallucinate, they are likely to see that thing. Hallucinations being constructs of the mind, your beliefs are going to affect it. People see the 'other side' because they desperately want to believe it. Fear of death is a universal, so false comfort escapes are common.
5) I realize that near death experiences (NDE's) are easily explained by hallucinations caused by the brain shutting down, but why do so many people experience similar hallucinations. Many palliative nurses report their patients have spoken to someone (often a loved one) to take them to the other side just before death. I realize that i[ts most likely explained by the brain shutting down, but its seems odd to me that so many people see similar hallucinations.
5) I realize that near death experiences (NDE's) are easily explained by hallucinations caused by the brain shutting down, but why do so many people experience similar hallucinations. Many palliative nurses report their patients have spoken to someone (often a loved one) to take them to the other side just before death. I realize that i[ts most likely explained by the brain shutting down, but its seems odd to me that so many people see similar hallucinations.
Is it completely unreasonable for "the other side" to exist?
No.
Is it unreasonable to think NDEs are evidence for it? Yes.
I agree it isnt evidence, i'm not trying to say there is evidence. I'm trying to show why people can reasonably believe in thiesm (which is the whole point of the challenge is it not?)
Fair enough. Blinking Spirit and yourself have changed my views on the above topic.
It’s nice to talk to someone with an open mind.
I still think there is reasonable room for God and I haven't converted from an agnostic to an atheist (yet lol). There are some questions I was wondering if you could answer for me using some of the more common scientific theories. While you answer, I would also appreciate it if you would also explain to me why it is completely unreasonable for a possible spiritual explanation.
I’ll be glad to tackle your questions, but I want to go over one thing first: When we don’t know something, it doesn’t suddenly become correct to invent an explanation. People used to not know what caused lightning to happen. It was inconcievable that it could happen on its own. Same for earthquakes. It can be summed up like this:
“Did you FEEL that earthquake? What caused it?!
“I don’t know. What if we say a really big guy hit the ground really hard?”
“Did he?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you didn’t have an explanation.”
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean--”
“Well I believe in The Big Guy Named Phil until you can prove what DID cause it.”
Phil is never the most reasonable answer. When you don’t know how something happened, the correct response is to say “I don’t know.” It’s not to invent Phil. And until a giant named Phil shows up and his existence is demonstrable, Phil is never more reasonable an explanation than an invisible magical rabbit.
So really, even without ANY answers to your questions, inventing Phil is never going to be a reasonable explanation.
Still, questions are fun to answer. Let’s get to it.
1) Where does matter come from? I realize it was spread across the universe by the big bang but where did the original hunk of exploding matter come from? Doesn't it have to have come from somewhere?
There are two main answers to this. One is Lawrence Kraus’ easily accessible talk (no scientific background needed) called “A Universe From Nothing”. He explains how no, it didn’t have to come from somewhere.
The second answer is to just point out how inventing Phil doesn’t actually solve the issue, if the issue even exists to begin with. If you assume that something can’t come out of nothing, or can’t have always existed, then the same goes for Phil. If something CAN come out of nothing, or can have always existed, the same thing can apply to matter as well. Saying that it only works for god is basically the definition of the special pleading fallacy. It also rests on proving that something CAN’T happen, which is *really* hard to do. Even without bringing in the fact that the laws of the universe weren’t really in place then, so there’s no way to prove that it can’t have happened in a laboratory.
So yeah, this point falls down hard.
2) Why do the laws of the universe exist the way they do? We can observe, learn from and test the laws of Physics and Chemistry but why does it work the way it does? Why does biology need to reproduce and evolve? I understand how it works but not why?
Bringing back our conversations…
“Why was there an earthquake yesterday?”
“Tectontic plates began to--”
“No, I know how it happened. WHY did it happen?”
Why does there need to be a “why”?
By asking “why” the laws of the universe exist the way they do, you’re accidentally begging the question. You’re assuming there’s an underlying purpose, and in the process assuming that something must have created those things with a purpose. There is no basis for this.
In fact, the word “law” implies there was someone that wrote the law. That’s not correct either, we just recognize patterns of behavior and come up with descriptions of what we see. We call those “laws”. So it’s not your fault, the wording does a lot to create this unfounded assumption that there has to be a “why”. But it IS an unfounded assumption.
“Why” is not really a correct question in science. “How” is what people normally mean.
As for Biology though, the answer is easy. Any biological species that doesn’t have an urge to reproduce just dies out. That’s why the only ones left are those that have an urge to reproduce. In the process, the ones that survive the best are the ones with the most useful new mutations. This makes evolution an *inevitability*, not an unlikely occurrence.
3) Where does conciseness come from?
Conciseness comes from a good editing process. Consciousness is harder to pin down. It obviously comes from some activity in the brain though, because when people suffer brain damage they lose aspects of their personality and the ability to think, self-awareness and other aspects of consciousness.
But, ultimately, inventing Phil doesn’t make this problem any easier. Where did Phil’s consciousness come from? And you’d also have to prove that Phil actually was responsible for this in the first place.
4) Why does the placebo effect work?
Really not seeing the relevance here. The brain releases chemicals in response to stimuli. The brain is what causes you to think and feel things. The brain also processes information, like the (false) information that relief from pain is on the way. When the same thing is doing more than one job, there’s overlap.
But in any case, just think how stressed you felt when you had 10 hours of homework to do before a 1 hour deadline. This is just information, nothing has physically happened to you, but you FEEL the stress. You can get headaches, you might even hyperventilate… And when you hear that it’s a snow day at school and you don’t have to turn the assignment in until tomorrow. You can FEEL the sudden sense of relief.
Same thing with placebos. The brain is good at making you feel things. Even stuff that seems like it has physical aspects.
5) I realize that near death experiences (NDE's) are easily explained by hallucinations caused by the brain shutting down, but why do so many people experience similar hallucinations.
Why do so many people have similar dreams in general? Lots of people dream that they went out in a public place naked, or dreamed they were falling endlessly.
The hard truth is that christians and people that live in heavily christian areas tend to have hallucinations about christ and angels and so on. Hindus tend to have hallucinations that fit their belief system. Same with the greek orthodoxy, muslims, budhists and so on. The part of the brain that creates hallucinations is heavily influenced by the culture you spend a lot of time in.
Is it completely unreasonable for "the other side" to exist?
In the terms of life after death? Yes, absolutely. There are two main reasons for this.
First, there’s nothing left of us to actually cross over after death. As mentioned before, we are the products of our brains. It’s very easy to prove this. When someone suffers brain damage, their personality can change. They can lose memories. They can lose their ability to think. The more the brain is damaged, the less of the person remains. Brain death is the permanent kind of death in medicine. It’s the dead-and-gone part. No dramatic resuscitations like when the heart stops beating. Game over.
There is no evidence that we somehow exist both in our brain and as some special soul-copy. ALL of the evidence we have points to the notion that we’re the software and our brains are the hardware. Everything you’d do to prove that we are dependent on our brains functioning has been done. Claiming that we go somewhere when we die is as unreasonable as claiming that my files go somewhere when my hard drive is destroyed. It’s not so scary though. Think about how the 1500s were for you. Do you think about how awful a time it was for you? Probably not, you weren’t born yet (I assume). You didn’t exist. Wasn’t so bad, was it? 2550 will probably feel pretty similar.
Second, the whole idea of life after death creates a logistical nightmare. Let’s say that someone suffers brain damage and completely forgets their old life. They now have a completely new personality, delusions of a previous life and so on. Or heck, let’s give him a SPLIT personality. Who gets into heaven? Do all the personalities have a timeshare on the soul? If I lose my short term memory during my life, is it in heaven waiting for pickup? If my whole personality, memories and identity gets changed after an accident, does the first personality (which is effectively dead now) go to heaven while I get a new soul free for the new personality (who is effectively a completely different person)? Or do they fuse together in heaven into some brand new person?
None of this second point actually means anything. Point is, we don’t have any evidence to suggest an afterlife is even *possible*, let alone a reasonable conclusion. In fact, all our evidence points in the direct opposite direction. It’s just also funny to imagine the bookkeeping involved.
Perhaps you can sway my thinking yet again
I hope you find our arguments to be reasonable and valid. If not, then I’ll be thanking you for helping to sway my own thinking.
I agree it isnt evidence, i'm not trying to say there is evidence. I'm trying to show why people can logically believe in Thiesm
... That doesn't make any sense. The word "evidence" is defined as, "that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof." If you're pointing to a phenomenon and saying it is grounds for logical belief in Theism, then you are saying that phenomenon is evidence.
And the answer is no, hallucinations are not a logical basis for belief in anything.
@Robert_G
The bible says murder, theft etc is wrong because that was part of the societal morality.
Incorrect. The bible says murder and theft are wrong, because God told us (which is recorded in the bible) that murder and theft are wrong. When God gave His moral law to Moses, it had absolutely NOTHING to do with Hebrew culture.
@Robert_G
People didn't need the Bible to convince them off basic moral rules.
Partly correct.
God made man in His image, and wrote His law on our hearts. This includes every human who ever lived...not just Christians. What this means is that every human being has a basic moral understanding of what is right or wrong according to what God Himself has deemed right or wrong.
@Robert_G
The bible instead of containing sophisticated morality, is ripe with torture, rape, slavery and genocide.
Incorrect and deliberately twisted by Jesus haters.
Yes, the bible does contain a lot of torture, rape, etc, etc....No argument here. But what that is, is simply a historical narrative. It is history being told. No where in the bible will you ever read God approving of murder, rape, etc.
Why have Christians turned away from this? Because they don't get their morality from the bible.
False. Any true devout Christian gets their morality from both the bible and the conviction from The Holy Spirit being indwelled in them, as well as the basic understanding of right and wrong from being made in God's image.
Morality is a basic human instinct, a social survival mechanism.
Yes it is....but again...it comes from being made in God's image and it can be calloused out just like any other emotion if a person tries hard enough.
Secondly, now you are the one setting up and knocking down straw men. Not all thiests view god as humanlike. Pantheist's for example.
Pantheists really push the limit of the definition of "God". There's a reason Spinoza was accused of being an atheist -- if he was just calling the universe "God" without ascribing any of the standard divine traits to it, was he really saying that God exists, or just playing a name game?
I agree it isnt evidence, i'm not trying to say there is evidence. I'm trying to show why people can reasonably believe in thiesm (which is the whole point of the challenge is it not?)
It is not reasonable to believe in something without any evidence for that thing.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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Personally, I'm agnostic and don't believe in any god out of a book, but there is much to be learned from religion. It gives us traditions and a common interest and morals, among other things.
Also, think about our genetic structures. How likely is that? Anyways, without going too in-depth I think that there is something watching over us as a race. No, It won't listen to our prayers- but it made lend a helping hand to our species. The divine-ish beings in Interstellar were very interesting to me...
Thanks for the interesting discussion, I have a lot to think about. I just might change from agnosticism to full on aethiesm after all. I'm going to check out "A Universe From Nothing", it sounds interesting.
Thank you Stairc for being so polite in your reponces. It was refreshing
@Robert_G
The bible says murder, theft etc is wrong because that was part of the societal morality.
Incorrect. The bible says murder and theft are wrong, because God told us (which is recorded in the bible) that murder and theft are wrong. When God gave His moral law to Moses, it had absolutely NOTHING to do with Hebrew culture.
That relies on the existence of God, which you can't verify, making it an illogical conclusion.
@Robert_G
People didn't need the Bible to convince them off basic moral rules.
Partly correct.
God made man in His image, and wrote His law on our hearts. This includes every human who ever lived...not just Christians. What this means is that every human being has a basic moral understanding of what is right or wrong according to what God Himself has deemed right or wrong.
So Hindus are morally inferior? And atheists, and classical Greeks and Norse and Buddhists. No, they're not.
@Robert_G
The bible instead of containing sophisticated morality, is ripe with torture, rape, slavery and genocide.
Incorrect and deliberately twisted by Jesus haters.
Yes, the bible does contain a lot of torture, rape, etc, etc....No argument here. But what that is, is simply a historical narrative. It is history being told. No where in the bible will you ever read God approving of murder, rape, etc.
In the old testament: "However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)"
In the new testament: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)"
"Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)"
Why have Christians turned away from this? Because they don't get their morality from the bible.
False. Any true devout Christian gets their morality from both the bible and the conviction from The Holy Spirit being indwelled in them, as well as the basic understanding of right and wrong from being made in God's image.
The Bible doesn't contain good moral messages, the 'conviction from the holy spirit' is unverifiable and therefore illogical to believe, as goes for 'being made in God's image'.
See my other 2 points on this....and know that no one is perfectly moral apart from God Himself.
If God is perfectly moral and all-powerful, then all immorality in the world must either allowed due to apathy or the result of God's imperfect (i.e. malicious) morality.
Thanks for the interesting discussion, I have a lot to think about. I just might change from agnosticism to full on aethiesm after all. I'm going to check out "A Universe From Nothing", it sounds interesting.
Thank you Stairc for being so polite in your reponces. It was refreshing
Anytime. I hope you enjoy the lecture. Feel free to PM me anytime for a conversation. Also, I happen to be an agnostic atheist. I treat the notion of a god the same way as I do invisible magic rabbits. I don't know for 100% sure that they don't exist, but I don't need to. There's no reason to think that they do exist. I'm just also willing to be proven wrong.
StairC. Out of curiosity, why do you consider yourself an agnostic athiest instead of just an athiest? Is it just because you can't disprove a negative?
"Look at this puddle of water. Do you realize how improbable it is that every atom of the ground could possibly be in this exact, perfect shape to produce this exact puddle? The chances of all the atoms just HAPPENING to be arranged in this pattern to perfectly fit the shape of the water are astronomical."
"Dude, water takes the shape of its container. Not the other way around."
"... Oh."
Life adapts to its environment, not the other way around. And if you flip a coin 100 times, the chances of getting that *exact* sequence of coin flips will look so improbable that it could only happen by divine intervention.
And let's imagine that one of those sequences of coin flips gives rise to life. In all circumstances that life exists, it would always seem to those life forms to be improbable. But that's because there is NO life otherwise to observe how probable their non-existence is.
And, ultimately, no matter how mathematically unlikely it is... It's still possible. Known possibility is always more likely than stuff that might not even exist. If I flip a coin 50 times and get heads 50 times - that's very unlikely. But it's not suddenly grounds for believing there's a magical coin-flipping rabbit secretly controlling the coin flips. It's more reasonable to believe in some natural, demonstrable explanation.
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This is the problem with your analogy. It is very unlikely that you'll get 100 flips of heads in a row. On the other hand, we have no means of assessing how probable the conditions that resulted in life forming on this planet were.
Fair enough. Blinking Spirit and yourself have changed my views on the above topic.
I still think there is reasonable room for God and I haven't converted from an agnostic to an atheist (yet lol). There are some questions I was wondering if you could answer for me using some of the more common scientific theories. While you answer, I would also appreciate it if you would also explain to me why it is completely unreasonable for a possible spiritual explanation.
1) Where does matter come from? I realize it was spread across the universe by the big bang but where did the original hunk of exploding matter come from? Doesn't it have to have come from somewhere?
2) Why do the laws of the universe exist the way they do? We can observe, learn from and test the laws of Physics and Chemistry but why does it work the way it does? Why does biology need to reproduce and evolve? I understand how it works but not why?
3) Where does conciseness come from?
4) Why does the placebo effect work?
5) I realize that near death experiences (NDE's) are easily explained by hallucinations caused by the brain shutting down, but why do so many people experience similar hallucinations. Many palliative nurses report their patients have spoken to someone (often a loved one) to take them to the other side just before death. I realize that its most likely explained by the brain shutting down, but its seems odd to me that so many people see similar hallucinations. Is it completely unreasonable for "the other side" to exist?
Perhaps you can sway my thinking yet again
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
And, despite what I'm about to say, I don't think me or anyone else here begrudges the religious for being religious. Only for assaulting others that don't follow and/or hold the same beliefs. Which (frankly) falls more on the person than the idea.
But there are things that we believe in that don't have empirical evidence, even for the non-religious. It's a wonderful Terry Pratchett quote.
It's a paragraph that has stuck with me.
Because regardless of whether you believe in a higher power, there is almost definitely something you believe in that can't be touched, seen, smelled, tasted, or heard.
At this time I will only debate this point.
To say that religious beliefs reflect human behavioral trends (in regards to morality) is absolutely absurd.
If you go out and kidnap and rape a 10 year old girl and then kill her in cold blood, it is WRONG....It is a SIN. I don't care what culture or time in history it may be. No decent human being has ever or is ever going to be ok with this and call it a 'cultural trend' making it ok to partake in.
That is why God gave us His Word in the scriptures....He taught us what is right and wrong. There is no guessing as to what is moral and what is not normal. It's all been given to us.
The bible says murder, theft etc is wrong because that was part of the societal morality. People didn't need the Bible to convince them off basic moral rules.
The bible instead of containing sophisticated morality, is ripe with torture, rape, slavery and genocide. Why have Christians turned away from this? Because they don't get their morality from the bible. They may reference parts of it, but they are moral before they ever read the bible. Morality is a basic human instinct, a social survival mechanism.
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I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
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The second problem is that spiritualism seems like a complete mismatch for the subjects at hand. We're getting pretty deep into theoretical physics here. The workings of cosmology and quantum mechanics are bizarre, alien, and counterintuitive to human minds, the more so the further down you go. So to find something as familiar as a humanlike spirit at the bottom of everything just seems patently absurd. And make no mistake, conventional depictions of God are extremely humanlike. He thinks, perceives, emotes, plans, and communicates. Humans do those sorts of things. Nano-wormholes in the quantum foam don't. Going into cosmology and looking for an entity with these qualities is like going to Mars and looking for a bar with your favorite microbrew. Sure, it's logically possible, but realistically, it's just parochial and naïve. Anthropomorphization on the grandest scale.
Nobody knows. And by that I mean both "nobody knows where it came from" and "nobody knows if it had to come from anywhere". The key discovery here is actually a mathematical breakthrough, Noether's Theorem. Emmy Noether proved that the physical conservation laws actually derive from symmetry laws. Of particular interest, conservation of mass-energy derives from symmetry of time. What this means is that where there is no symmetry of time, for instance at the beginning of time, then there need be no conservation of mass-energy.
Nobody knows. Looking at Noether's Theorem again, it provides an intriguing hint that some of the laws may be derivable from mathematics. But so far it remains just a hint. Nobody has come close to grounding any of the apparently-arbitrary physical constants in mathematical logic. So far this remains a mystery.
This, at least, there is an easy answer to: because if it didn't, it wouldn't be biology. Biological things don't need to reproduce and evolve. Rather, we see things that reproduce and evolve, and slap the label "biology" on them.
Your brain is a computer. It is running a program. That program contains a model of itself. That is your consciousness. There is still a lot we don't know about how this works, but we're now pretty confident about the basic scheme.
If you try to explain consciousness in terms of a spirit inhabiting the body, you run into what is known as the homunculus problem: you now have to answer the question of where the spirit's consciousness comes from. Is it itself inhabited by another, smaller spirit? Okay, where does that spirit's consciousness come from? And so on ad infinitum.
Endorphins. Remember that the brain runs on and produces a chemical pharmacopoeia. It doesn't need magic to affect the state of the body; affecting the state of the body is its regular physiological job.
It is as reasonable as it is reasonable to expect that the Mona Lisa would continue to exist in some magical, invisible place after a vandal burned it. The Mona Lisa, like your brain, is matter arranged in a very specific pattern. The pattern is important, but so is the matter; you couldn't have any pattern without it. And think about it. If you could have the pattern without the matter, why bother with the matter in the first place? If we have immaterial souls, why do we have bodies?
People experiencing similar hallucinations are no stranger than football players displaying similar neurological symptoms: our brains are all pretty similar to each other, so if you subject them to similar forms of trauma you can often expect similar results.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Firstly, getting "pretty deep into theoretical physics here" doesn't mean i'm off topic. This isn't a thread about theoretical physics, at least I didn't think it was. I was simply responding to DJK3654's challenge, I don't think I have gone outside the boundaries of it.
Secondly, now you are the one setting up and knocking down straw men. Not all thiests view god as humanlike. Pantheist's for example.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Its called Humanism.
Sam Harris has some pretty interesting views on morality. He thinks we could actually make a science out of it.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
1. Nothing. Literally. A particleless vacuum will periodically split into matter and antimatter. This can be observed.
2. Multiverse theory explains this with infinite diversity- that there exists a universe for every possible set of laws. But ultimately, we really don't know. No matter what explanation for everything you create, you always end up with something just being there. Some force, some principle, some object- that is just there.
3. Biochemistry. We don't see the world and feel the world, we perceive an illusion, a construct of our brain. It feels deeper, seems deeper, but our best understanding of the mind is purely material.
4. http://m.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/mskpages/Placebo_effect?open
5. Hallucinations aren't random. If a lot of people believe in the same thing, when any of them hallucinate, they are likely to see that thing. Hallucinations being constructs of the mind, your beliefs are going to affect it. People see the 'other side' because they desperately want to believe it. Fear of death is a universal, so false comfort escapes are common.
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I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
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Whether "the other side" exists or doesn't, NDEs are not evidence for it.
I agree it isnt evidence, i'm not trying to say there is evidence. I'm trying to show why people can reasonably believe in thiesm (which is the whole point of the challenge is it not?)
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
It’s nice to talk to someone with an open mind.
I’ll be glad to tackle your questions, but I want to go over one thing first: When we don’t know something, it doesn’t suddenly become correct to invent an explanation. People used to not know what caused lightning to happen. It was inconcievable that it could happen on its own. Same for earthquakes. It can be summed up like this:
“Did you FEEL that earthquake? What caused it?!
“I don’t know. What if we say a really big guy hit the ground really hard?”
“Did he?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you didn’t have an explanation.”
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean--”
“Well I believe in The Big Guy Named Phil until you can prove what DID cause it.”
Phil is never the most reasonable answer. When you don’t know how something happened, the correct response is to say “I don’t know.” It’s not to invent Phil. And until a giant named Phil shows up and his existence is demonstrable, Phil is never more reasonable an explanation than an invisible magical rabbit.
So really, even without ANY answers to your questions, inventing Phil is never going to be a reasonable explanation.
Still, questions are fun to answer. Let’s get to it.
There are two main answers to this. One is Lawrence Kraus’ easily accessible talk (no scientific background needed) called “A Universe From Nothing”. He explains how no, it didn’t have to come from somewhere.
The second answer is to just point out how inventing Phil doesn’t actually solve the issue, if the issue even exists to begin with. If you assume that something can’t come out of nothing, or can’t have always existed, then the same goes for Phil. If something CAN come out of nothing, or can have always existed, the same thing can apply to matter as well. Saying that it only works for god is basically the definition of the special pleading fallacy. It also rests on proving that something CAN’T happen, which is *really* hard to do. Even without bringing in the fact that the laws of the universe weren’t really in place then, so there’s no way to prove that it can’t have happened in a laboratory.
So yeah, this point falls down hard.
Bringing back our conversations…
“Why was there an earthquake yesterday?”
“Tectontic plates began to--”
“No, I know how it happened. WHY did it happen?”
Why does there need to be a “why”?
By asking “why” the laws of the universe exist the way they do, you’re accidentally begging the question. You’re assuming there’s an underlying purpose, and in the process assuming that something must have created those things with a purpose. There is no basis for this.
In fact, the word “law” implies there was someone that wrote the law. That’s not correct either, we just recognize patterns of behavior and come up with descriptions of what we see. We call those “laws”. So it’s not your fault, the wording does a lot to create this unfounded assumption that there has to be a “why”. But it IS an unfounded assumption.
“Why” is not really a correct question in science. “How” is what people normally mean.
As for Biology though, the answer is easy. Any biological species that doesn’t have an urge to reproduce just dies out. That’s why the only ones left are those that have an urge to reproduce. In the process, the ones that survive the best are the ones with the most useful new mutations. This makes evolution an *inevitability*, not an unlikely occurrence.
Conciseness comes from a good editing process. Consciousness is harder to pin down. It obviously comes from some activity in the brain though, because when people suffer brain damage they lose aspects of their personality and the ability to think, self-awareness and other aspects of consciousness.
But, ultimately, inventing Phil doesn’t make this problem any easier. Where did Phil’s consciousness come from? And you’d also have to prove that Phil actually was responsible for this in the first place.
Really not seeing the relevance here. The brain releases chemicals in response to stimuli. The brain is what causes you to think and feel things. The brain also processes information, like the (false) information that relief from pain is on the way. When the same thing is doing more than one job, there’s overlap.
But in any case, just think how stressed you felt when you had 10 hours of homework to do before a 1 hour deadline. This is just information, nothing has physically happened to you, but you FEEL the stress. You can get headaches, you might even hyperventilate… And when you hear that it’s a snow day at school and you don’t have to turn the assignment in until tomorrow. You can FEEL the sudden sense of relief.
Same thing with placebos. The brain is good at making you feel things. Even stuff that seems like it has physical aspects.
Why do so many people have similar dreams in general? Lots of people dream that they went out in a public place naked, or dreamed they were falling endlessly.
The hard truth is that christians and people that live in heavily christian areas tend to have hallucinations about christ and angels and so on. Hindus tend to have hallucinations that fit their belief system. Same with the greek orthodoxy, muslims, budhists and so on. The part of the brain that creates hallucinations is heavily influenced by the culture you spend a lot of time in.
In the terms of life after death? Yes, absolutely. There are two main reasons for this.
First, there’s nothing left of us to actually cross over after death. As mentioned before, we are the products of our brains. It’s very easy to prove this. When someone suffers brain damage, their personality can change. They can lose memories. They can lose their ability to think. The more the brain is damaged, the less of the person remains. Brain death is the permanent kind of death in medicine. It’s the dead-and-gone part. No dramatic resuscitations like when the heart stops beating. Game over.
There is no evidence that we somehow exist both in our brain and as some special soul-copy. ALL of the evidence we have points to the notion that we’re the software and our brains are the hardware. Everything you’d do to prove that we are dependent on our brains functioning has been done. Claiming that we go somewhere when we die is as unreasonable as claiming that my files go somewhere when my hard drive is destroyed. It’s not so scary though. Think about how the 1500s were for you. Do you think about how awful a time it was for you? Probably not, you weren’t born yet (I assume). You didn’t exist. Wasn’t so bad, was it? 2550 will probably feel pretty similar.
Second, the whole idea of life after death creates a logistical nightmare. Let’s say that someone suffers brain damage and completely forgets their old life. They now have a completely new personality, delusions of a previous life and so on. Or heck, let’s give him a SPLIT personality. Who gets into heaven? Do all the personalities have a timeshare on the soul? If I lose my short term memory during my life, is it in heaven waiting for pickup? If my whole personality, memories and identity gets changed after an accident, does the first personality (which is effectively dead now) go to heaven while I get a new soul free for the new personality (who is effectively a completely different person)? Or do they fuse together in heaven into some brand new person?
None of this second point actually means anything. Point is, we don’t have any evidence to suggest an afterlife is even *possible*, let alone a reasonable conclusion. In fact, all our evidence points in the direct opposite direction. It’s just also funny to imagine the bookkeeping involved.
I hope you find our arguments to be reasonable and valid. If not, then I’ll be thanking you for helping to sway my own thinking.
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And the answer is no, hallucinations are not a logical basis for belief in anything.
Incorrect. The bible says murder and theft are wrong, because God told us (which is recorded in the bible) that murder and theft are wrong. When God gave His moral law to Moses, it had absolutely NOTHING to do with Hebrew culture.
Partly correct.
God made man in His image, and wrote His law on our hearts. This includes every human who ever lived...not just Christians. What this means is that every human being has a basic moral understanding of what is right or wrong according to what God Himself has deemed right or wrong.
Incorrect and deliberately twisted by Jesus haters.
Yes, the bible does contain a lot of torture, rape, etc, etc....No argument here. But what that is, is simply a historical narrative. It is history being told. No where in the bible will you ever read God approving of murder, rape, etc.
False. Any true devout Christian gets their morality from both the bible and the conviction from The Holy Spirit being indwelled in them, as well as the basic understanding of right and wrong from being made in God's image.
See my other 2 points on this....and know that no one is perfectly moral apart from God Himself.
Yes it is....but again...it comes from being made in God's image and it can be calloused out just like any other emotion if a person tries hard enough.
Pantheists really push the limit of the definition of "God". There's a reason Spinoza was accused of being an atheist -- if he was just calling the universe "God" without ascribing any of the standard divine traits to it, was he really saying that God exists, or just playing a name game?
It is not reasonable to believe in something without any evidence for that thing.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Also, think about our genetic structures. How likely is that? Anyways, without going too in-depth I think that there is something watching over us as a race. No, It won't listen to our prayers- but it made lend a helping hand to our species. The divine-ish beings in Interstellar were very interesting to me...
Golgari Scavenge
Thank you Stairc for being so polite in your reponces. It was refreshing
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
That relies on the existence of God, which you can't verify, making it an illogical conclusion.
EDIT: More detail
So Hindus are morally inferior? And atheists, and classical Greeks and Norse and Buddhists. No, they're not.
In the old testament:
"However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46 NLT)"
In the new testament:
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. (Ephesians 6:5 NLT)"
"Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)"
Sounds like an allowance, and endorsement even.
The Bible doesn't contain good moral messages, the 'conviction from the holy spirit' is unverifiable and therefore illogical to believe, as goes for 'being made in God's image'.
If God is perfectly moral and all-powerful, then all immorality in the world must either allowed due to apathy or the result of God's imperfect (i.e. malicious) morality.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
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I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Why are these useful?
But we already have those.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
Anytime. I hope you enjoy the lecture. Feel free to PM me anytime for a conversation. Also, I happen to be an agnostic atheist. I treat the notion of a god the same way as I do invisible magic rabbits. I don't know for 100% sure that they don't exist, but I don't need to. There's no reason to think that they do exist. I'm just also willing to be proven wrong.
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I doubt there really is such thing as a 'non agnostic atheist'. It's foolish to suggest that God is impossible.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
There are real life flat-earthers. Foolishness has rarely been a barrier to belief.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane