I'm Completely Lost...

[Shyone]

 

I agree that the default position is definitely not Christianity. In other words, no one comes out of the womb with John 3:16 automatically embedded into their minds. But can you really say that people, by default, don't believe in some kind of creator?

That's a very good question.

 

It reminds me of an experiment by Frederick the Great. He had a bet regarding the "first language" spoken by humans - the "original" language. He decided to take two infants and place them in a room, but they would have no human contact other than nutritional. No baby talk, no German, and certainly no other language.

 

In the end, the children went mad and they couldn't speak at all.

 

Speech, and religion, are taught.

 

In the course of normal human culture, I would say that most cultures have at least had some idea that the dead "live on." Ancestor worship in various forms has been common. Gods probably followed animism and ancestor worship by mimicking human institutions.

 

God is the King. He has messengers, "children" and gives out laws. He is in charge of all of the other dead ones. When one culture conquers another culture, the gods change or become part of the pantheon. "My god is greater than your god!" "No, My god is the greatest!"

 

And all this time, everyone forgot they were talking about dead kings that had been the subject of ancestor worship.

 

Well, not everyone. The Egyptians claimed that their king was god while he was alive. And after he died? Well, there's a lot of competition in Heaven, and first come first served.

 

All very human, you know?

 

Did I mention that gods have thrones?

[Guest confused idiot]

 

I agree that the default position is definitely not Christianity. In other words, no one comes out of the womb with John 3:16 automatically embedded into their minds. But can you really say that people, by default, don't believe in some kind of creator?

That's a very good question.

 

It reminds me of an experiment by Frederick the Great. He had a bet regarding the "first language" spoken by humans - the "original" language. He decided to take two infants and place them in a room, but they would have no human contact other than nutritional. No baby talk, no German, and certainly no other language.

 

In the end, the children went mad and they couldn't speak at all.

 

Speech, and religion, are taught.

 

In the course of normal human culture, I would say that most cultures have at least had some idea that the dead "live on." Ancestor worship in various forms has been common. Gods probably followed animism and ancestor worship by mimicking human institutions.

 

God is the King. He has messengers, "children" and gives out laws. He is in charge of all of the other dead ones. When one culture conquers another culture, the gods change or become part of the pantheon. "My god is greater than your god!" "No, My god is the greatest!"

 

And all this time, everyone forgot they were talking about dead kings that had been the subject of ancestor worship.

 

Well, not everyone. The Egyptians claimed that their king was god while he was alive. And after he died? Well, there's a lot of competition in Heaven, and first come first served.

 

All very human, you know?

 

Did I mention that gods have thrones?

 

I guess I see what you're saying.

 

Honestly, I don't really see the point in seeking truth anymore. What's the point? Some questions don't have answers. It's usually the big questions. In the back of my mind all I'm doing is looking for proof that this mental hell is not true. So what if it is? What if hell is real? What if the Bible is true? What does it even matter to me anymore? I don't have a choice in any of this. If hell is real, I don't have a choice, that's where I'm going no matter what. What's the point in caring anymore?

[godsfavoritecolor]

 

The whole "we don't know exactly how it got started but it somehow did and I'm not gonna worry about it" thing kind of gets me. I'm not saying anyone here is saying that, but some people do, no doubt. How could any living organism come from complete nothingness? I don't understand that. No matter how much I look at it, I don't understand it. One other thing that some people do is try way too hard to make the Bible contradict itself and come up with things that, in reality, do not contradict. I'm not even saying that there are no contradictions in the Bible, but I've looked at some lists of these contradictions before, and some of them are not contradictions at all.

 

 

Maybe you don’t understand because you are too deliberately stupid and ignorant to understand. Instead of asking tough questions and trying to find verifiable answers, you would rather wallow in the comforting ignorance of Goddidit.

 

Scientists do not know all of the answers, but they keep looking, and they test and verify their conclusions rather than giving up in frustration and proclaim Goddidit. You owe more to them for the comforts of this life than you owe to any mythical god.

[Shyone]

I guess I see what you're saying.

 

Honestly, I don't really see the point in seeking truth anymore. What's the point? Some questions don't have answers. It's usually the big questions. In the back of my mind all I'm doing is looking for proof that this mental hell is not true. So what if it is? What if hell is real? What if the Bible is true? What does it even matter to me anymore? I don't have a choice in any of this. If hell is real, I don't have a choice, that's where I'm going no matter what. What's the point in caring anymore?

When it comes to living, most decisions don't really matter that much, but a few do. Concentrate your attention on living, and your thinking will become more ordered. Everything should fit together as tightly as possible.

 

I suppose it depends on your persistence and how doggedly you search. You will have to be satisfied with whatever you find - whether it agrees with your preconceptions or not.

 

For me, it was a matter of looking at reality and asking (myself and others), "Does reality conform to my expectations?"

 

"If hell is real" then we still don't know shit about it. I know it makes no sense. I know that the ideas that people have about who's going and who's not vary wildly from religion to religion and from sect to sect. Does this sound like some kind of plan?

 

And here's the kicker. Maybe you don't have a choice, but that doesn't mean you know that you deserve eternal torment or worse (just kidding). Assume an all loving deity, and you will lose hell. It seems that belief can't be that important if the very best people on earth are supposedly in hell.

 

Heaven for the climate - Hell for the company.

[Shyone]

How could any living organism come from complete nothingness? I don't understand that. No matter how much I look at it, I don't understand it.

 

This is where a little reading could be really handy.

 

Consider that you can stick a "dead sperm" into an egg with a needle and the chemical processes create a single cell - that reproduces and follows the instructions of the DNA to make an animal. Like a human, for instance.

 

It's chemistry. You didn't come from "complete nothingness". You came from your parents. They came from their parents. Millions and millions of generations over billions of years and - trust me - you would not recognize your relatives. Especially from the branch that developed photosynthesis.

 

Like the trees, for instance.

 

Just as simply as a sperm and egg coming together, chemicals come together. Carbon is unique for it's abilities for forming chains and circles and combining with nitrogen and oxygen and hydrogen. Uncountable chemical reactions have happened since the earth began, and one set of chemicals that forms spontaneously joined with others to make chains that bound with other chemicals.

 

Sometimes this was fruitless. A bunch of sludge. One time, though, a chain of ribonucleic acids formed that could bind to other chains of RNA - and duplicate itself.

 

And God said, "That's good".

 

Well, except for the God part, it seems that's what happened. Which chemicals, where it happened, and other details may not be possible to know - but then they might!

 

Chemistry, for all of its possibilities, is very easy to understand. And no matter how hard you look in any chemistry book, you won't find anything about hell. Or heaven.

[ShallowByThyGame]

Scientists have shown that the building blocks of life, like amino acids, can form naturally in the right situations. Evolution is a natural and mathematical process...if a chemical can duplicate itself(many chemicals create 'chains', and these can break off forming new chains), and it can survive, that chemical will become more and more common. I can see a soup of acids and proteins forming very simple cells that reproduce a lot more likely and probably than a some undefinable entity that can be proven manually doing it. I think saying 'God did it' is a lack of imagination.

 

Here is

that is being investigated.

 

I don't see why your life has to be on hold though. Are you afraid of walking the wrong path? Why not simply follow your heart and if some amazing truth appears to you later you can adjust accordingly? Surely there are things you like doing that doesn't need to be a part of a path to salvation or enlightenment.

 

There was never nothingness, the building blocks were always there, even if before the big bang they were supposedly all compacted together. We are born into a logical system of natural laws. Maybe we'll never know why those laws exist, but there is no reason to suppose that something could have been powerful enough to put them into place. The theists have no evidence for it anyway, which is why they have come up with so many crazy contradicting theories.

[wonder]

confused, this whole christianity thing simply doesnt make sense. think about it. this god put 2 people in a garden with a tree and a serpent he knew would bring sin into the world. god set mankind up to fall. it doesnt make sense. then he destroyed the whole world (via the flood) because of the very system he put in place.

 

and he left that very same system in place. why didnt the flood take care of the original sin. why destroy the world and leave the same thing in place. i mean wasnt that the reason he destroyed the world, because sin was in it.

 

if you can see how that doesnt make sense then you can see how its all crap.

 

but you cant get past 'god created this world'. maybe if you can get past that you can start accepting the rest of the illogicalness of it all.

 

can you see yourself as an atheist. are you willing to accept the term atheist when describing yourself, or are you afraid something bad will happen to you if you do.

 

or do you feel like you are forced to believe because no one can disprove your x-tian beliefs.

[Guest confused idiot]

 

The whole "we don't know exactly how it got started but it somehow did and I'm not gonna worry about it" thing kind of gets me. I'm not saying anyone here is saying that, but some people do, no doubt. How could any living organism come from complete nothingness? I don't understand that. No matter how much I look at it, I don't understand it. One other thing that some people do is try way too hard to make the Bible contradict itself and come up with things that, in reality, do not contradict. I'm not even saying that there are no contradictions in the Bible, but I've looked at some lists of these contradictions before, and some of them are not contradictions at all.

 

 

Maybe you don’t understand because you are too deliberately stupid and ignorant to understand. Instead of asking tough questions and trying to find verifiable answers, you would rather wallow in the comforting ignorance of Goddidit.

 

Scientists do not know all of the answers, but they keep looking, and they test and verify their conclusions rather than giving up in frustration and proclaim Goddidit. You owe more to them for the comforts of this life than you owe to any mythical god.

 

If being honest with myself makes me stupid and ignorant, so be it. You say I would rather wallow in the "comforting ignorance" of Goddidit than to ask myself the tough questions? Bullshit. For the record, I don't find any of this God stuff to be comforting at all. To be honest, some of the time, I wish there was no God, and I wish I knew that for a fact. But it really doesn't matter what I wish for, does it? That doesn't amount to one damn thing. I've asked myself just about every question that I'm capable of coming up with. The small, the big, the tough, the ugly, everything. So don't be giving me any of that crap.

 

 

How could any living organism come from complete nothingness? I don't understand that. No matter how much I look at it, I don't understand it.

 

This is where a little reading could be really handy.

 

Consider that you can stick a "dead sperm" into an egg with a needle and the chemical processes create a single cell - that reproduces and follows the instructions of the DNA to make an animal. Like a human, for instance.

 

It's chemistry. You didn't come from "complete nothingness". You came from your parents. They came from their parents. Millions and millions of generations over billions of years and - trust me - you would not recognize your relatives. Especially from the branch that developed photosynthesis.

 

Like the trees, for instance.

 

Just as simply as a sperm and egg coming together, chemicals come together. Carbon is unique for it's abilities for forming chains and circles and combining with nitrogen and oxygen and hydrogen. Uncountable chemical reactions have happened since the earth began, and one set of chemicals that forms spontaneously joined with others to make chains that bound with other chemicals.

 

Sometimes this was fruitless. A bunch of sludge. One time, though, a chain of ribonucleic acids formed that could bind to other chains of RNA - and duplicate itself.

 

And God said, "That's good".

 

Well, except for the God part, it seems that's what happened. Which chemicals, where it happened, and other details may not be possible to know - but then they might!

 

Chemistry, for all of its possibilities, is very easy to understand. And no matter how hard you look in any chemistry book, you won't find anything about hell. Or heaven.

 

You're right, I didn't come from complete nothingness. But if atheism is true, then somewhere along the line, something did, which makes no sense. Pardon my ignorance, but I'm reading, I'm studying, doing all this with a very open mind, and I still can't seem to make much sense of it.

 

confused, this whole christianity thing simply doesnt make sense. think about it. this god put 2 people in a garden with a tree and a serpent he knew would bring sin into the world. god set mankind up to fall. it doesnt make sense. then he destroyed the whole world (via the flood) because of the very system he put in place.

 

and he left that very same system in place. why didnt the flood take care of the original sin. why destroy the world and leave the same thing in place. i mean wasnt that the reason he destroyed the world, because sin was in it.

 

if you can see how that doesnt make sense then you can see how its all crap.

 

but you cant get past 'god created this world'. maybe if you can get past that you can start accepting the rest of the illogicalness of it all.

 

can you see yourself as an atheist. are you willing to accept the term atheist when describing yourself, or are you afraid something bad will happen to you if you do.

 

or do you feel like you are forced to believe because no one can disprove your x-tian beliefs.

 

You're right, it doesn't make sense. But the one and only thing I can't get past is the "God created the world" thing. I could see myself as a deist or an agnostic, but I can't see myself becoming an atheist, not yet anyway.

[Guest Valk0010]

 

You're right, it doesn't make sense. But the one and only thing I can't get past is the "God created the world" thing. I could see myself as a deist or an agnostic, but I can't see myself becoming an atheist, not yet anyway.

Atheism is not a requirement of leaving christianity. Just seems to happen that a fair deal of exchristians are atheists

[wonder]

confused, we know we came from somewhere. but how do you know 'god' created everything. you only know goddidit because the bible says so. but the bible is so ridiculous how can you believe anything in it. seems youre putting too much stock in the bible. i think the bible is the source of your problems. you agree the bible doesnt make sense. but why doesnt it make sense. i say it doesnt make sense because its all made up. are you willing to take that leap and say the same thing to your self?

[Shyone]

You're right, I didn't come from complete nothingness. But if atheism is true, then somewhere along the line, something did, which makes no sense. Pardon my ignorance, but I'm reading, I'm studying, doing all this with a very open mind, and I still can't seem to make much sense of it.

 

 

But the one and only thing I can't get past is the "God created the world" thing. I could see myself as a deist or an agnostic, but I can't see myself becoming an atheist, not yet anyway.

There are two possibilities (maybe more); that something came from nothing naturally, or something came from nothing because it was magically created by some creature that waited about 14 billion years (or more) before we finally evolved and became the pets of this creature who watches us masturbate and cares but never really does anything to relieve actualy suffering.

 

I vote that it's natural. Nature explains a lot, including suffering and pain.

 

In a sense, there isn't a big distinction between physics and chemistry. They are differences of scale, not effect. But the existence of the universe follows physical principles in every respect. Life obeys chemical principles in every respect.

 

In at least one way, a beautiful and completely natural history of the universe, life and everything could be written today, and the whole thing would be rejected by people who want there to be magic and invisible beings that fight each other, sit on thrones, copulate with humans and make iron float.

 

How does mass get created? Quantum vacuum fluctuations and vitual particles. How does life get created? Simple chemical reactions create naturally occuring chemical compounds that then react with each other.

 

What does the theist say? "You weren't there! You can't know for sure!"

 

What does he mean? "Don't look for it! Don't even consider physical possibiities! It was magic, and that's the final WORD!"

 

If you're at all like me (or my wife), you watch an occasional detective story like Bones or CSI. Using minute details, a few assumptions, some experiments and clever analysis, they solve mysteries. They can tell you, by the end of the show, whether the dead person was murdered, committed suicide, or died of either an accident or natural causes. Maybe they don't get all the details correct, but they can tell you a lot.

 

What if someone said, "A DEMON killed them, and there is no need for any experiments, looking for evidence or investigation! You don't know! You weren't there!"?

 

I would be wondering what that person was hiding. I would also say that there could not be a stupider explanation. Invisible immaterial beings that can walk through walls and then turn around and kill people? Nope, doesn't happen.

 

And it never did.

 

But here we are with lots of evidence, clues, assumptions (theories) and experiments. We have the clever analysis. The only problem is that we aren't at the end of the show.

 

I love reading about nature. Things I have seen for ages, things I have never seen and things I hope to see some day are all interesting. I read about things, and how they got to be that way, and almost always it's "OMG, of course! It makes sense now!"

 

I never got that from religious explanations. Something unknowable that has no body, is invisible, not made of matter, that no one can relate to does something unknown in some unknowable way and the result is what we see? That's an explanation?

 

It's true that none of us were present at the beginning of the universe - sort of. Our matter is as old as the universe. Our biology derives from life forms extending back to the first life form, and the material from all earlier life forms has been recycled, amplified, modified and, in most cases (with exceptions) improved by purely natural means; primarily natural selection.

 

 

Your great, great, great...great, great granddaddy was the first self replicating mollecule. Its material has not gone. Some part of that may still be in some life form somewhere, or available to another lifeform. But it never went away. You probably don't know your family history beyond a few generations, but you surely can imagine that the earliest parents you know about - had parents. Right?

 

It takes a lack of imagination to claim that somewhere back before you know of your family history some generation just magically appeared. I wasn't in the "garden of Eden", but Adam had a belly button and so did eve - because they were primates.

[Ouroboros]

You're right, it doesn't make sense. But the one and only thing I can't get past is the "God created the world" thing. I could see myself as a deist or an agnostic, but I can't see myself becoming an atheist, not yet anyway.

For me it's the opposite. I can't get past the "God existed before everything else, without being created." If God can be non-created, infinite, and eternal, then why must that "thing" be a personal being with thoughts, brain, and necessarily a dick to make him male? Seriously. How does a magical person solve the problem of beginning of the universe? I have a hard time understanding that.

 

I see the Universe as the result of an infinite, eternal process. Perhaps it came as an spawn of another universe, or perhaps there is some kind of multi-verse where all universes exists within, or maybe it somehow is eternally cyclical, collapsing into itself somehow. But I can't see why there had to be one extra component, magical, personal, and cognitive to solve that problem.

 

So I guess that somehow us humans have different wiring in our brains. For some it makes more sense to have a mystery that is personal and sentient, and for others the mystery is good enough if it's kept within the realm of nature.

 

I don't understand everything. I do see there are paradoxes and mysteries in nature and science. But I have learned to accept them anyway. Just because some super-set theory creates an infinite loop of strange paradoxes, it doesn't mean it's part of reality. And I can't comprehend or fully get the feeling for what infinite future means, or infinite space. It's all weird. It's all mysterious. So... does all those mysteries get solved by replacing them with a new mystery?

 

If the kid can't figure out how they got the Christmas presents and hear about Santa, is the Santa mystery a better mystery? Maybe it is because people tend to drop the question in their brain. Instead of accepting the real mystery--where did the gifts come from?--they accept the mystery of Santa being able to fit through the chimney. Because then they have an explanation, and deflect the question in their minds. That's my view on it. It's a mental shortcut to avoid accepting the mystery of reality.

 

And I think you're on the right path already. You have started to realize these things. God doesn't explain things. Nature doesn't answer all questions. There's a point of accepting the limitations of our knowledge, and with it comes peace.

[NotBlinded]

You're right, it doesn't make sense. But the one and only thing I can't get past is the "God created the world" thing. I could see myself as a deist or an agnostic, but I can't see myself becoming an atheist, not yet anyway.

confused, there doesn't have to be an outside entity that creates and pushes buttons in order to get things going. This image is put in our minds since birth and our language itself represents this idea. When we say things like, "it's raining outside", what is this "It" that is doing the raining? Aristotle also had a lot to do with this view of things with his Unmoved Mover notion. I believe he is wrong myself. There is nothing that is not moving anywhere and there doesn't appear to be anything external moving it.

 

There is another way to look at things. Matter and energy could be the "intelligent" factor in creating things. God is nature, so to speak. Then nature becomes spontaneous and directed on it's own. There is no one sitting around telling a tree's sap to go to the roots in the winter. It just happens, spontaneously.

 

To me, this is a great inspiration. I can sit in awe at the interactions of all these moving molecules and atoms in order to become something else. That something right there brought about everything. Was there intent? No intent to any certain thing, but just the drive towards creation and growth regardless of the result.

 

[Ouroboros]

Preach it sista'!!!

 

To me, this is a great inspiration. I can sit in awe at the interactions of all these moving molecules and atoms in order to become something else. That something right there brought about everything. Was there intent? No intent to any certain thing, but just the drive towards creation and growth regardless of the result.

And in a sense it could be taken one step further. Intent is just the flow of energy and processes. Intent is the potential force in the things that are. Not "intent" as in "thought out and planned for it to be so," but rather the force is there and it pushes things to become. Power, force, energy, is in other words the same as Intent. Am I way too out there now? (And repetitive too)

[Shyone]

To me, this is a great inspiration. I can sit in awe at the interactions of all these moving molecules and atoms in order to become something else. That something right there brought about everything. Was there intent? No intent to any certain thing, but just the drive towards creation and growth regardless of the result.

 

You... reductionist, you!

 

[Shyone]

And in a sense it could be taken one step further. Intent is just the flow of energy and processes. Intent is the potential force in the things that are. Not "intent" as in "thought out and planned for it to be so," but rather the force is there and it pushes things to become. Power, force, energy, is in other words the same as Intent. Am I way too out there now? (And repetitive too)

Repeatedly redundantly repetitive again and again.

 

It does make one think about what intent is. Does the rain result from the intent of the clouds? Do tides result from the intent of the gravity of the moon?

 

Uh, no. I don't think so. As AM would say, intent results from a higher order of organization in which the outcome could be otherwise instead of inevitable or unplanned.

 

Intent is tied to purpose which then depends on a goal. It is, for example, not the intent of a species to evolve. Rather, they have the intention of surviving and the survival is facilitated by favorable genetics.

 

Am I being obtuse?

[NotBlinded]

To me, this is a great inspiration. I can sit in awe at the interactions of all these moving molecules and atoms in order to become something else. That something right there brought about everything. Was there intent? No intent to any certain thing, but just the drive towards creation and growth regardless of the result.

 

You... reductionist, you!

 

 

 

 

Just because I didn't mention "intelligence" doesn't mean you can slander me like that.

 

No wait...I did.

[NotBlinded]

And in a sense it could be taken one step further. Intent is just the flow of energy and processes. Intent is the potential force in the things that are. Not "intent" as in "thought out and planned for it to be so," but rather the force is there and it pushes things to become. Power, force, energy, is in other words the same as Intent. Am I way too out there now? (And repetitive too)

Yes! Oh, not that you are too way out there, but the push to become. Whatever that becomming will be.

 

Intent plus probabilities equal a wildebeest.

[Ouroboros]

Am I being obtuse?

Yes. Absolutely. But I like you anyway.

[NotBlinded]

Repeatedly redundantly repetitive again and again.

 

It does make one think about what intent is. Does the rain result from the intent of the clouds? Do tides result from the intent of the gravity of the moon?

 

Uh, no. I don't think so. As AM would say, intent results from a higher order of organization in which the outcome could be otherwise instead of inevitable or unplanned.

 

Intent is tied to purpose which then depends on a goal. It is, for example, not the intent of a species to evolve. Rather, they have the intention of surviving and the survival is facilitated by favorable genetics.

 

Am I being obtuse?

No you are just being you.

[Ouroboros]

Intent plus probabilities equal a wildebeest.

Wildebeest? Never heard before... looking up... A gnu!?

 

Takes a lot of intent and probabilities to end up with a gnu.

[NotBlinded]

Intent plus probabilities equal a wildebeest.

Wildebeest? Never heard before... looking up... A gnu!?

 

Takes a lot of intent and probabilities to end up with a gnu.

Maybe a little intent became overwhelmed with probablities? That is a zebra-antelope-horse-buffalo creature all in one!

[Shyone]

Intent plus probabilities equal a wildebeest.

Wildebeest? Never heard before... looking up... A gnu!?

 

Takes a lot of intent and probabilities to end up with a gnu.

Well, I learn something gnu every day.

[★ Citsonga ★]

How could any living organism come from complete nothingness? I don't understand that. No matter how much I look at it, I don't understand it.

 

But, confused, that is exactly what christianity claims! God supposedly just poofed everything into existence out of nothing!

 

One other thing that some people do is try way too hard to make the Bible contradict itself and come up with things that, in reality, do not contradict. I'm not even saying that there are no contradictions in the Bible, but I've looked at some lists of these contradictions before, and some of them are not contradictions at all.

 

To an extent I agree with you on this. Some proposed "contradictions" seem to stem from either misunderstanding the text or searching for as many "contradictions" as can be conjured up. That's disturbing, both to a christian (offended by the bible being misrepresented) and to an ex-christian like myself (bothered by the way christians can write off skeptics altogether because of finding errors in some skeptics' arguments).

 

That being said, I will also say that there are indeed more contradictions in the bible than than one just breaking free will likely realize. Christian indoctrination can make people "see" things in the text that aren't really there, thus thinking it means something other than what it really seems to be saying when looked at without said indoctrination.

 

I would suspect that most likely what you've encountered as "things that, in reality, do not contradict" can be split into both categories, some of which you are correct about and some of which you're still being blinded to by the church's misrepresentations.

[Guest confused idiot]

I.... I don't even know what to say or think.