Why I Was Wrong...

September 16, 2005

So you guys asked for a response. Oh boy...

First off, I will not make the same mistake in tone that I made last time. I DO NOT CLAIM to have all the answers. I do not claim to be anyone particularly smart or gifted. But for what it's worth, I think that reading this may do some people some good. Every bit of actual constructive discussion in search for truth is ultimately a good thing. I'm trying to help both myself and others to STOP AND THINK - which is always a good thing. THAT is why we are NOT ALL wasting our time here.

Sorry in advance for the freakin' essay. You guys know that complicated concepts take a long time to verbalize, but I'm going to try and tie all this together in ONE place - to make up for the fact that I'm leaving here soon. (Like I said in the first thread, I cannot in good conscience perpetuate the monster that is this site.) That way, if you have questions or comments, you can hopefully just go back and read again to clarify. If not, I suppose I might remain a member in case you really want to e-mail me. If you need some background to what I'm discussing here, check out "Why You Are All Wasting Your Time" in the Debating Christians forum. (cringe)

The following will end up representing most of the major thought throughout my whole life, so if you bother to actually read it, please read it slowly and thoroughly, and give it at least a little thought. If you don't read it, then please try not to criticize what you don't understand. May all of us learn at least something in searching for truth.

============================

1. Why I cannot trust myself or my own mind: Nobody's perfect.

So you have knowledge (implying absolute certainty) about VERY few things in this world. You don't (maybe even can't) KNOW whether or not you're really awake right now. Let alone whether or not your own worldview is accurate. You can neither prove nor KNOW that Christianity (or any religion) is either true or false. You merely BELIEVE one way or another that a particular worldview (or any random fact for that matter) is true or false. You may call me an agnostic, an extreme skeptic, and a Christian. All of those would be correct. What I'm saying is that certainty is impossible to attain about most things in this world.

You have no 100% certainties. You only have probability. For every event or observation, there is always more than one possible explanation. You decide within your own mind what the most probable explanation for the given observation may be.

How do you decide this? You assign those probability weights in your mind, and whatever interpretation has the biggest probability, you end up believing. It's a little stupid, after all, to expect somebody else to believe something that they view as false.

{{Sorry in advance to any of you particularly bombastic people reading that last sentence - Christian, atheist, agnostic, etc. I don't care what you call yourself - just please maintain intellectual humility and DO NOT do any of the following:

* expect people to have had similar lives / worldviews to yours

* spout off or yell without ever really listening

* thoughtlessly and repeatedly shove things down people's throats

* make up cute little comebacks, one-liners or wordplay (Oh aren't you so clever?)

* assume you've heard it all before

* unleash storms of emotion and irrelevant personal issues

* dodge the real issues with humor, ad hom. attacks, spelling/grammar police, etc.

* call people names like some 5-year old kid

* presume to psychoanalyze and categorize others (whom you, by the way, know nothing about)

* launch tyrades of mindless profanity

* launch equivalent tyrades of mindless scripture quotation

* assume yourself to be pretty smart or assume others to be not-so-smart

Instead, I hope we can try to CONSTRUCTIVELY DISCUSS issues of truth! Do not be proud. Do not be angry. Do not be presumptuous. Basically, don't be a jerk... please.}}

Okay, so... You believe things because your experience and life have led you to assign higher prior probability to the truthfulness of certain explanations for certain observations. The problem with this is that everyone's experiences and lives are subjective things based only on sensory input, which is itself interpreted and accepted based on... what? There is pretty much NOTHING (at least in this world - just keep reading - ESPECIALLY those of you with a philisophical background who are thinking "a priori" right about now) to base it on. What would you use besides sensory input to determine the truthfulness of sensory input? You have nothing substantial to base it on. Basically, all you have is blind faith.

What makes you think that's air that you're breathing? Reason. Based on experience. Based on sensory input. Which you have no way of really knowing how accurate it may be. You just accept it because you find no real reason to doubt. (So maybe that's what THEY want you to think - and now they finally have you fooled into believing that you're breathing air. :-)

My point is that all your prior probabilities are arbitrary. You believe what you believe because of NO objective reason WHATSOEVER - only because of blind faith. You cannot reasonably have ANY trust in your own judgments about what is true because there is nothing to base that trust on besides the faith of a child.

Okay, so we've deconstructed to the bottom. Let's go up from here, shall we?

Notice I said that there is nothing in THIS world to base any judgment on. (God, if such a thing exists, is not of this world.)

2. Why I can trust deism: Perfection IS perfect.

So, human beings know little to nothing with certainty. Perhaps the only thing that you or I know is that "something exists" and that "I" am a part of that "something" - whatever that is. You see, the problem lies in definition. Of course I can know that I'm here in this room, for whatever that's worth - but the real trick is WHAT this room is, and WHAT I really am. (You see, saying "I am here in this room" turns out to be not "worth" much if you don't know what you or the room really are.)

Ultimately, the definitions of me and of this room, and of everything else in existence are relative to every single partical of matter / non-matter that exists. Everything in this universe is relative to everything in this universe. If I change position, I am changing position relative to everything in existence, which in turn minutely changes everything in existence.

Everything in this universe is relative, which means that for something to be ABSOLUTE, it would have to entirely permeate EVERYTHING in existence in this space-time continuum. It would have to be something foundational to the very fabric, the very making of this universe. If such an absolute exists, then it must be singular - otherwise it would obviously not be an absolute.

You may call this absolute God, The Force, Ahtman, Natural Law, whatever you like. But if there is an absolute, then it must be the SOURCE of all true knowledge because, by its nature, it is the only thing that is able to possess true knowledge. After all, it is the only thing that is in a position to naturally possess ALL knowledge, and could therefore NOT BE MISTAKEN about something.

So, if this universe happens to contain any substantial true knowledge worth having, it must come from an absolute, ("omniscient" in this application) source. Any lesser source cannot possess actual, certain KNOWLEDGE of just what anything actually IS. Kind of sucks for you and me.

And here is where God comes in. You cannot trust yourself, but if there is God, then you can trust Him. He can guide you, your thoughts, your life, your fate... your predestination. You see, with fate and predestination taken into account, the HOW and WHY are hopelessly complex issues that are worked out in Heavenly realms, not down here where we can understand what's going on. HOW and WHY are not the right questions to ask because we can't know the answers - but WHAT.

WHAT you ultimately put your trust in is the one thing that will define your life. You won't know what you have ultimately put your trust in until the day you die and can look back on a completed life, which you ended up spending living FOR and BY something.

Please think back to (or just reread) my first thread. We can no more live without living for something and by something than we can move without going anywhere. You have no choice but to choose something to trust. Sorry - I know that sucks too (tell me about it) - but that's the way it is. Even if you choose "nothing", you are still choosing yourself and your own mind.

Or you can choose just about anything you like. Some people choose music, others choose some girl or some guy, or plural girls or guys, some choose power, or money, or fame. Others, like you and I, are strongly tempted to choose only themselves and their own minds.

But none of that will satisfy you. There is nothing in this world that lasts. Don't fool yourself - deep down, you know it just like I do. Nothing here will ever really give you meaning. Your own self cannot even give you meaning, because you will become someone before long who is no longer yourself. People get old, and stupid, and fuzzy-minded, and fat, and ugly... and senile... and diseased... and then dead.

You too will get old, and then you will die. There is nothing where you are going.

All your friends, and all your enemies, every last person on the face of the earth will go through a different story to meet the same ending. Each of us, in the end, faces death - completely and utterly alone.

There are no friends, no husbands, no wives. No sons or daughters, brothers or sisters. You may even be surrounded by your loved ones as you're going, but in the end there is nothing besides just you - and death. Alone.

So what will you do? You can trust temporary, ultimately meaningless and worthless things, or you can look around for something that would go beyond that. There are two options: an ultimately meaningless life (make some money, breed, get old, and die... who cares?) in which we must accept relativism, or a choice to trust in an absolute that may make life bigger than death.

Here's where Christianity comes in for me personally. (Yes, open to Pascal's Wager and start up the happy Jesus music...)

Remember I said there are always multiple interpretations / explanations for anything. Two sides to every story... at least. In keeping with this line of thought, either Christianity may be something of a vast, peculiarly lucky conspiracy to bring false hope to the world - or it may be that it's true.

So let's start at the bottom and go up to my belief in Christianity.

3. Why I do trust the Christian God: Perfection in an imperfect world.

Let me start by saying that it seems more likely to me that my senses are at least somewhat accurate. I kind of HAVE to trust my senory input because I really don't have much of another option. So as I said above, I CHOOSE to trust that this world is much as it appears, and therefore that history is not all a vast lie. You can't blame me for doing this, just as I really couldn't blame you if you said that all of history and everything we think we know IS a lie.

Once you accept history, it's a fairly obvious step that this guy Jesus and his disciples EXISTED and had a major impact on our world - and that they would all either have to be some combination of skilled, extraordinarily well-coordinated con-artists / madmen... or sincere. Likewise, then, the Bible could be just a man-made anthology of old texts, or it could be that PLUS the absolute power's chosen method of revealing itself to the humankind stuck within this universe.

Time out: Here it is. Christianity COULD be true, and it COULD not be true. I don't know. And neither do you. There is belief, trust, faith... all those words based on a probability that is not 100%. There is not CERTIANTY of 100% in this context - therefore there is NOT KNOWLEDGE. There is only FAITH that Christianity either "is" or "is not" what we're looking for. Just like any religion. Just like any belief.

Okay, resuming now - I believe there IS such an ultimate as I described earlier because I look around and find it almost laughable to think otherwise. People on here seem not to realize that macroevolution has some serious, fatal problems with it that render it statistically and logically impossible. Look into it for yourself. As for the "Big Bang"... (no this is NOT identical or really even related to macroevolution) matter had to COME from somewhere. This universe cannot have existed forever in the state that it is now - by our very laws of physics and the way things are - that's impossible. The laws of our universe cannot have eternally been like they are now. This means that either the laws of this universe themselves exhibit expiration/mutation properties which we know nothing about, or that there is some outside influence that operates beyond the limited three dimensions we know.

This means that the Big Bang is mostly irrelevent to any discussions of the ultimate origin of our universe. To recap - Darwinism: yeah right. Big Bang: who cares either way? Now intelligent design: if you ever get a chance, go out to a deserted gravel road in the countryside, make sure there are no lights for at least half a mile on a clear, moonless night. Look up. That's not a cloud across the sky that you're seeing. That's looking toward the center of the Milky Way Galxy. That's trillions - yes, I said trillions - of stars... just in our own little galaxy - at distances which your mind is unable to fathom. Moving at unbelievable speeds around things that bend the boundaries of space and time. And there are many more galaxies, far, far beyond our own.

Look up facts sometime on how completely, unbelievably perfect for life this one planet is, compared to every other celestial body we have ever detected. Look into mirobiology... or chemistry, or quantum physics, or neurophysiology. Just look around when you step outside in the morning. Even if macroevolution WERE POSSIBLE... do you REALLY think that this all WOULD have happened randomly? Why do you look on a sunset and find it beautiful? I personally think it one of the most blatantly obvious facts about our world - if you trust that the world is really as it appears to your senses - that it has been designed and arranged.

And no - it is still NOT possible for anyone to prove anything either for or against theism or atheism. Beautiful mess we're all in, isn't it? :-)

So there is an ultimate... but the real trick is - who or what IS it? Of the major world religions, Hinduism automatically discounts itself by claiming openly that it is a manmade construct. Even if it were not a manmade construct, it would make no difference in my life because it requires nothing of me and means nothing to me. If I die without following Hindu practices, then I will just be a little lower on the ladder next time as some other person or animal. And if I'm a Christian, then Hinduism's got me covered anyway because it says all religions are okay.

Mormonism has SERIOUS issues with historical accuracy and an utter lack of evidence for any of the things it claims have happened. If some of you think the Bible has problems, wow...

Buddhism was originally rather similar to Christianity. Over the centuries it has been subverted, splintered, and turned into a vast, man-made construct of rules and laws. (Sadly - this is also not unlike a good share of Christianity.) The difference here is that Buddhism thinks that man can actually do things himself. The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Five Precepts... really all just general rules in the first place. Do it yourself. Overcome. Just be good enough and work hard enough and you'll figure it all out. Obviously, my points on not being able to even trust your own judgment on whether you're awake or asleep conflict with this JUST A BIT. Buddhism and any other religions (here come Islam, Judaism... even some forms of Catholicism IMHO) where you must follow rules and be "good enough" cannot be the truth - because we are all inherently flawed beyond hope. We don't even have any certainty what reality is - so how are we supposed to act somehow "good enough" within that reality?

Here's where pac-man can't fly a plane, and where the residents of Sim City find themselves unable to reach Bill Gates when they call on the sim-phone. (Asbolutely correct, Mr. Neil - it was Will Wright (major stud), but odds are that Sim City is running on Windows. :-)

Christianity is not the only world religion that owns up to the fact that nobody is perfect. HOWEVER, it is the only one that truly owns up to the fact that nobody is even all that GOOD. People may appear to be good sometimes, but what are their motives for those "good" acts?

Nobody ever has truly selfless motives for anything they do. Young children have not even learned to give an appearance of selflessness. Adults, no matter how charitable and how self-sacrificing their "good" acts may appear to be, are never completely selfless - even if only for the fact that they have chosen freely to undertake that "good" act... or for the knowledge of desirable consequences that the act will bring. Freedom and knowledge result in impurity of motives here. On the other hand, lack of freedom and lack of knowledge result in slavery and ignorance - but not purity. It's a lose-lose situation. I believe humans can never be truly, selflessly good. (If you have any backgrund in psychology, then this would be somewhere in line with the recent movement saying that there is no such thing as true "empathy.") Please, just think about it for yourself and see what you find.

We've already seen how we cannot even trust our own beliefs and judgment. In just the same way, as long as we're discussing what is "good" - we have no authority to decide morality. We have opinions of things we like and things we don't like, but we are all just humans like everyone else. Who cares what any one of us thinks? How could a resident of Sim City authoritively declare to all other Sim citizens what was right and wrong for all of them?

In order to have a standard for good, we must have something capable of setting that standard. Here, once again, is The Absolute. If there is no such absolute, then there is no standard for true "good" - only for "practicality" or for "preference" or something similar. What is "good" - just like what is "true" - must come from the top down, from an absolute - if such a thing exists.

Of all the world religions, Christianity's concept of good fits the best with what I see when I look at the world. It's true that a lot of the idea of "good" could have been developed on pragmatic concerns. But not all of it. Psychology has shown that human beings are not born as blank slates. We are born with a predisposal to sin, to defy authority, and to care only for ourselves.

Other things about Christianity make me choose it over other world religions as well. It's historical accuracy. (Which I never said was perfect.) The fact that I have been born into a world where it is the dominant religion. (For whatever that's worth.)

But I'm not saying that any of these things can or do have any impact on anyone besides me.

4. All Together Now...

No one may hold me unreasonable for my beliefs, just as I may not do likewise to them. All beliefs, at the very basic level, are based on nothing but blind faith... and so taken alone would all be equally reasonable or unreasonable. Of course that is an argument from ignorance - that was my original point. IGNORANCE IS ALL THERE IS.

You see, we must assume that we are wrong about something serious. Maybe it's true that there are a lot of people in the world, so you might think that SOMEBODY would have to be lucky enough to be right about all the important things. Not true, though: think of the sheer number of possible combinations of beliefs that you COULD have about who you will talk to today... let alone something as big and complex as the existence of God, or the nature of our universe, etc.

We cannot trust our own judgment, and so, as any skeptics and agnostics realize... the only thing reasonable to do is to SUSPEND judgment. But that is the one thing we cannot do. We have to live, to make decisions, to go through life and react to stimuli. We have no choice but to each live BY something and FOR something... or to die.

For me, the choice is between myself and God.

OPTION A:

If I choose myself: I choose to trust my own theological, cosmological, and philisophical views. (Which MUST be fatally wrong in at least some area.) I trust my own judgment (what else can I do?) and go swing out into the rest of my life, then death, then eternity... based on my own reasoning... which I already know to be a dead end. (Unless Hindus are right, in which case it never mattered anyway. :-) I will live an ultimately meaningless life. Grow up, get money, breed, get old, and die. Congratulations.

OPTION B:

If I choose God: Then I obviously assume that He is guiding me and that I'll be okay (at least right ENOUGH about the important things). I personally find that it is not OVERLY likely that Christianity is true. But it is still definitely the best alternative to trusting myself - which I know will automatically result in death, or worse, for me. Not that Christianity IS true, but that it still could be... and that it could be more so than any other world religion. And that possibility is worth it all for me.

I will gladly give up comforts in this life for the possibility that there is something more, and that it is ETERNAL. When one begins to understand what ETERNAL means, I think Pascal's Wager becomes a non-issue. Even a relatively decent chance of true meaning in life is worth it for anything that ETERNAL. Eternity is a very, very long time. No, it's longer than that.

And even if I'm wrong, I have only given up a few creature comforts, temporary pleasures, etc. I have lived a "moral life". It all becomes meaningless by the time we grow old anyway. There is nothing really all that much to be gained or lost in this world besides love and a free life. Everybody alike deals with pain, sickness, and death. It doesn't matter who you are - but I think that there IS the possiblity of LIFE, which makes it all worth it for me.

In this way, perhaps the possiblity of TRUE meaning in life is the only real meaning there is.

=================

So, like I said, yes you may call me agnostic, yes I'm a (pathologically extreme) skeptic, and yes those are both big reasons why I am ALSO a Christian. I don't KNOW that there is a God, just like nobody can KNOW much of anything. But I have faith, just like everyone has faith in something.

I think the above explanation answers most of the replies back to me that I have received. A few people have understood what I'm saying, but I think a large part have missed the gravity of it.

If any of you are really serious about this issue, then I recommend reading something like "Warranted Christian Belief", by Alvin Plantinga.

If you're NOT serious, then I guess I would humbly recommend leaving this site for good, because it seems there is an abundance of people here doing a poor job of representing their own sides of the issues. That's neither productive nor helpful.

I will post a few more specific, directed responses to earlier comments (on the first thread - and maybe to some really good comments I see here) later... and then I'm done. Sorry, but I can't keep this up - I'm still perpetuating this site, and this thing was about 24,000 characters...

~ reality

September 16, 2005

While this is all a really neat philosophical discussion...

Time out: Here it is. Christianity COULD be true, and it COULD not be true. I don't know. And neither do you. There is belief, trust, faith... all those words based on a probability that is not 100%. There is not CERTIANTY of 100% in this context - therefore there is NOT KNOWLEDGE. There is only FAITH that Christianity either "is" or "is not" what we're looking for. Just like any religion. Just like any belief.

The fundamental problem with christianity is that it promises that prayer works when it indeed does not. It doesn't give you pat answers like 'sometimes the answer is no' or any of that crap. The bible literally says 'ask and ye shall receive'.

There has not been one single person raised from genuine 'three days in the ground' death in america, ever. If you can heal the sick and raise the dead like the bible says you can, then go for it. It should be happening all over the country, with at least some reportable consistency. But it doesn't. Nobody can actually heal the sick or raise the dead. This means we know for a fact that it is a lie.

We DO know with 100% certainty that christianity is not true. If there's a god, he isn't the god of the bible.

September 16, 2005

And here is where God comes in. You cannot trust yourself, but if there is God, then you can trust Him. He can guide you, your thoughts, your life, your fate... your predestination. You see, with fate and predestination taken into account, the HOW and WHY are hopelessly complex issues that are worked out in Heavenly realms, not down here where we can understand what's going on. HOW and WHY are not the right questions to ask because we can't know the answers - but WHAT.

~ reality

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Woooo! Too much to read.

This part caught me. I've learned that we have to trust in ourselves. We must trust in what we preceive. Life is that Adventure we allow ourselves to take. As to what we do? Do we respect things in this Life? Do we admire things in this Life? Do we appreciate things in this Life? And do we accept what we are in this life? It is only accountable to us at this present time. I would think some God\Deity should make known to us the HOWS and WHYS, if it really wants recognition.

But if I admire and appreciate somethings on this Earth. Maybe that is just enough for such recognition needed ... (?)

September 16, 2005

I'm trying to help both myself and others to STOP AND THINK -
~ reality

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Marilyn Manson teaches more about thinking for oneself than all the Christians I've ever met put together.

September 16, 2005

Reality fails to realize that we have been where he is and found it lacking. Most, not all, but most of us here were harmed by his religion. Many of us suffered great psychological torment because of the "good news". I myself suffered from childhood on in fear of hell. Why would I go back to such a horrific belief system?

September 16, 2005

So you have knowledge (implying absolute certainty) about VERY few things in this world. You don't (maybe even can't) KNOW whether or not you're really awake right now. Let alone whether or not your own worldview is accurate. You can neither prove nor KNOW that Christianity (or any religion) is either true or false. You merely BELIEVE one way or another that a particular worldview (or any random fact for that matter) is true or false. You may call me an agnostic, an extreme skeptic, and a Christian. All of those would be correct. What I'm saying is that certainty is impossible to attain about most things in this world.

You have no 100% certainties. You only have probability. For every event or observation, there is always more than one possible explanation. You decide within your own mind what the most probable explanation for the given observation may be.

That depends on what one is willing to allow into one's explanatory framework. If we start talking in terms of the supernatural, there is an inordinately large (possibly infinite) number of discrete "explanations."

The Invisible Pink Unicorn and the new hotness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, are famous examples of explanations that cannot be ruled out when the supernatural Pandora's Box of explanations is opened.

Okay, so... You believe things because your experience and life have led you to assign higher prior probability to the truthfulness of certain explanations for certain observations. The problem with this is that everyone's experiences and lives are subjective things based only on sensory input, which is itself interpreted and accepted based on... what? There is pretty much NOTHING (at least in this world - just keep reading - ESPECIALLY those of you with a philisophical background who are thinking "a priori" right about now) to base it on. What would you use besides sensory input to determine the truthfulness of sensory input? You have nothing substantial to base it on. Basically, all you have is blind faith.

I don't think so. Blind faith implies that it is prima facie unreasonable to accept a proposition. 'Reality is real' is an unprovable premise, but it is no more unreasonable than any other premise about existence.

What makes you think that's air that you're breathing?

Because I am not Neo and you are not Morpheus.

Everything in this universe is relative, which means that for something to be ABSOLUTE, it would have to entirely permeate EVERYTHING in existence in this space-time continuum. It would have to be something foundational to the very fabric, the very making of this universe. If such an absolute exists, then it must be singular - otherwise it would obviously not be an absolute.

You may call this absolute God, The Force, Ahtman, Natural Law, whatever you like. But if there is an absolute, then it must be the SOURCE of all true knowledge because, by its nature, it is the only thing that is able to possess true knowledge. After all, it is the only thing that is in a position to naturally possess ALL knowledge, and could therefore NOT BE MISTAKEN about something.

I was with you until the end. The 'singular thing' need not be sentient or conscious; at least you have not demonstrated such. Something (natural law, perhaps) can be foundational to knowledge but not actually "possess" knowledge itself.

And here is where God comes in. You cannot trust yourself, but if there is God, then you can trust Him.

How do I know that?

He can guide you, your thoughts, your life, your fate... your predestination.

He can. How do I know he has my best interests in mind?

But none of that will satisfy you. There is nothing in this world that lasts. Don't fool yourself - deep down, you know it just like I do. Nothing here will ever really give you meaning. Your own self cannot even give you meaning, because you will become someone before long who is no longer yourself. People get old, and stupid, and fuzzy-minded, and fat, and ugly... and senile... and diseased... and then dead.

You are equivocating. If I say, "I am not myself today," I mean that I am acting outside of some character-model I have made for myself. But all my characteristics make up my self. There is no sense in which I cannot have a self if I refer to myself as "I."

So what will you do? You can trust temporary, ultimately meaningless and worthless things, or you can look around for something that would go beyond that. There are two options: an ultimately meaningless life (make some money, breed, get old, and die... who cares?) in which we must accept relativism, or a choice to trust in an absolute that may make life bigger than death.

Personally, I believe that my life would be diminished if it turned out to be some esoteric test or stepping stone to something "bigger."

Remember I said there are always multiple interpretations / explanations for anything. Two sides to every story... at least. In keeping with this line of thought, either Christianity may be something of a vast, peculiarly lucky conspiracy to bring false hope to the world - or it may be that it's true.

Let me start by saying that it seems more likely to me that my senses are at least somewhat accurate. I kind of HAVE to trust my senory input because I really don't have much of another option. So as I said above, I CHOOSE to trust that this world is much as it appears, and therefore that history is not all a vast lie. You can't blame me for doing this, just as I really couldn't blame you if you said that all of history and everything we think we know IS a lie.

And thus, you have just refuted your entire rant about blind faith. If something "seems more likely," then how can it be blind faith?

Once you accept history, it's a fairly obvious step that this guy Jesus and his disciples EXISTED and had a major impact on our world - and that they would all either have to be some combination of skilled, extraordinarily well-coordinated con-artists / madmen... or sincere. Likewise, then, the Bible could be just a man-made anthology of old texts, or it could be that PLUS the absolute power's chosen method of revealing itself to the humankind stuck within this universe.

Those dichotomies were just as false in CS Lewis's time as they are now.

Okay, resuming now - I believe there IS such an ultimate as I described earlier because I look around and find it almost laughable to think otherwise. People on here seem not to realize that macroevolution has some serious, fatal problems with it that render it statistically and logically impossible.

Pure bullshit. All such attempts to demonstrate flaws in "macroevolution" have failed miserably.

Look into it for yourself.

Done that. Have the degree to show for it.

As for the "Big Bang"... (no this is NOT identical or really even related to macroevolution) matter had to COME from somewhere. This universe cannot have existed forever in the state that it is now - by our very laws of physics and the way things are - that's impossible. The laws of our universe cannot have eternally been like they are now. This means that either the laws of this universe themselves exhibit expiration/mutation properties which we know nothing about, or that there is some outside influence that operates beyond the limited three dimensions we know.

One thing modern cosmology has taught us is that classical notions of existence and causality implode at Planck Length and Time.

This means that the Big Bang is mostly irrelevent to any discussions of the ultimate origin of our universe. To recap - Darwinism: yeah right. Big Bang: who cares either way? Now intelligent design: if you ever get a chance, go out to a deserted gravel road in the countryside, make sure there are no lights for at least half a mile on a clear, moonless night. Look up. That's not a cloud across the sky that you're seeing. That's looking toward the center of the Milky Way Galxy. That's trillions - yes, I said trillions - of stars... just in our own little galaxy - at distances which your mind is unable to fathom. Moving at unbelievable speeds around things that bend the boundaries of space and time. And there are many more galaxies, far, far beyond our own.

Look up facts sometime on how completely, unbelievably perfect for life this one planet is, compared to every other celestial body we have ever detected. Look into mirobiology... or chemistry, or quantum physics, or neurophysiology. Just look around when you step outside in the morning. Even if macroevolution WERE POSSIBLE... do you REALLY think that this all WOULD have happened randomly? Why do you look on a sunset and find it beautiful? I personally think it one of the most blatantly obvious facts about our world - if you trust that the world is really as it appears to your senses - that it has been designed and arranged.

This from the fellow who just called himself an "extreme skeptic"?

And what to make of the stuff that suggests the designer was incompetent?

Buddhism and any other religions (here come Islam, Judaism... even some forms of Catholicism IMHO) where you must follow rules and be "good enough" cannot be the truth - because we are all inherently flawed beyond hope. We don't even have any certainty what reality is - so how are we supposed to act somehow "good enough" within that reality?

Bad form to reject one religion based upon the presuppositions of another.

Christianity is not the only world religion that owns up to the fact that nobody is perfect. HOWEVER, it is the only one that truly owns up to the fact that nobody is even all that GOOD. People may appear to be good sometimes, but what are their motives for those "good" acts?

Nobody ever has truly selfless motives for anything they do. Young children have not even learned to give an appearance of selflessness. Adults, no matter how charitable and how self-sacrificing their "good" acts may appear to be, are never completely selfless - even if only for the fact that they have chosen freely to undertake that "good" act... or for the knowledge of desirable consequences that the act will bring. Freedom and knowledge result in impurity of motives here. On the other hand, lack of freedom and lack of knowledge result in slavery and ignorance - but not purity. It's a lose-lose situation. I believe humans can never be truly, selflessly good. (If you have any backgrund in psychology, then this would be somewhere in line with the recent movement saying that there is no such thing as true "empathy.") Please, just think about it for yourself and see what you find.

Selflessness is not synonymous with "non-good"?

We've already seen how we cannot even trust our own beliefs and judgment.

Actually, we have only seen how we cannot prove our beliefs and judgments.

In order to have a standard for good, we must have something capable of setting that standard. Here, once again, is The Absolute. If there is no such absolute, then there is no standard for true "good" - only for "practicality" or for "preference" or something similar. What is "good" - just like what is "true" - must come from the top down, from an absolute - if such a thing exists.

What is "good" except the preference of "The Absolute"?

Of all the world religions, Christianity's concept of good fits the best with what I see when I look at the world. It's true that a lot of the idea of "good" could have been developed on pragmatic concerns. But not all of it. Psychology has shown that human beings are not born as blank slates. We are born with a predisposal to sin, to defy authority, and to care only for ourselves.

Again, you are presupposing Christianity in order to criticise non-Christianity.

For me, the choice is between myself and God.

Here, you presuppose the existence of God in order to make God a viable option. From my perspective it looks more like this:

a. One of several thousand God-concepts, each described by man-made language.

b. None of the above.

September 16, 2005

You say you apologize for your tone and then you start of with a lecture. Perhaps this is all innocent and you don’t realize that you come across as abrasive, but you do in fact come across as abrasive. Why? For one you make brush stroke assumptions that frankly fit your fellow believers better than they fit us.

You state:

just please maintain intellectual humility and DO NOT do any of the following:

* expect people to have had similar lives / worldviews to yours

* spout off or yell without ever really listening

* thoughtlessly and repeatedly shove things down people's throats

* make up cute little comebacks, one-liners or wordplay (Oh aren't you so clever?)

* assume you've heard it all before

* unleash storms of emotion and irrelevant personal issues

* dodge the real issues with humor, ad hom. attacks, spelling/grammar police, etc.

* call people names like some 5-year old kid

* presume to psychoanalyze and categorize others (whom you, by the way, know nothing about)

* launch tyrades of mindless profanity

* launch equivalent tyrades of mindless scripture quotation

* assume yourself to be pretty smart or assume others to be not-so-smart

Personally I find this to be disingenuous, but I guess I’m one of those bombastic ones you refer to. We are all here because we do/did/will in fact choose to question, to look at and carefully weigh other views, to introspect and to examine in depth them. I realize this is not true of most who sit on the pew next to you every Sunday. You make the assumption that we just assume we are right and others are wrong. The truth is closer to the fact that most of us have spent years reading, attending university, spending time in deep reflection, asking the hard hard questions. This is why we are here. We may be guilty of name calling and ad homs from time to time, but seriously, we are not in kindergarten. Grow up and live in the raw world. And, we are not trying to get you to believe what we believe. First, our beliefs vary, and second we are only trying to tell you why your beliefs are wrong. There is a difference.

And lest I forget, why do you continue to assume we are not reading thoroughly what you have written. Many of us have taken the time to answer each section of your previous essays. They are not in fact too difficult for us to digest in one session. Most of us were required to pore over dramatically more difficult and lengthy passages on a daily basis during our times in school.

“You don't (maybe even can't) KNOW whether or not you're really awake right now.”

Now this is just plain silly. Please demonstrate how this is a true statement. It is an example of a strawman you like to build because in the very next sentence you state “let alone know your world view is accurate.” The problem is you hurt your own argument for theism with this statement more than you damage my view of atheism. I don’t know that I’m right or that there is for sure no god. I do know I haven’t been presented with even close to a reasonable reason for believing there might be. I have no manifestos, no creeds. What exactly is my world view but that of a student of life who continues to question and learn. I don’t claim ultimate truth. I don’t need to. I am sure Christianity is FALSE. And again, that is very different from assuming I know something is TRUE.

“The problem with this is that everyone's experiences and lives are subjective things based only on sensory input, which is itself interpreted and accepted based on... what?”Based on observation, testing, and repeated expected outcomes. I know for instance that if I drop an apple it will fall to the ground. Probabilities in this case are 100% unless something else is introduced to the test. I KNOW a lot of things like this that have nothing to do with probabilities or faith, rather repeatable observation.

“And here is where God comes in. You cannot trust yourself, but if there is God, then you can trust Him.”

How you got to this assumption is baffling.

“I kind of HAVE to trust my senory input because I really don't have much of another option.”

The rest of this is just a bunch of Josh McDowell et al debunked material that we have gone over and over. Do the research through this site if you care to. Why should we spend more time on it one more time? That, and emotional appeal. Emotional appeal won’t get you more than a cup of coffee here.

You may have spent time thinking and writing this out, but I'm not impressed. We've spent a lot more time examining this stuff, debunking it, and crawling out of it. It already had my first 25 years.

September 16, 2005

Reality, do you believe in hell?

September 16, 2005

I myself suffered from childhood on in fear of hell. Why would I go back to such a horrific belief system?

Couldn't have said it better myself.

September 16, 2005

Not bad, but you are still basing your life on a guess. Maybe there's a God and maybe He is the one from the bible. So I'll go ahead and worship Him and give my money, time, resources, heart, and mind to Him and His Church, and feel guilt for having basic, natural human thoughts and urges, and lament that all my friends and family will be tortured in fire for all eternity. Yeah, that's a good life and I'm tempted to go back-- but...

You talk as if you are open to the truth, but when confronted with material that strongly suggests that Jesus did not exist, you dismiss it as if it were absurd.

Also you don't see how morality is possible without God, but people have been creating community standards since they started living in groups. Early on groups could see that if you get assaulted, it hurts. So don't assault. They gather around the dead body of someone they liked and think "I don't like that- let's kill the guy that did it". If you take my food, I'll be hungry, so keep your own stuff and leave mine alone. If someone does something that hurts another or the whole group, it is bad. The more it hurts, the worse it is. The more people it hurts, the worse it is. It doesn't take long for a set of laws to be made and punishments determined. I don't see a great need for a god to lay it all out for us because otherwise we'll all kill each other and take each other's things. The idea of doing what is the most good for the most amount of people is nothing new, and was around long before the OT was written.

You admit there are problems with the bible, but still choose to think God gave it to us so we can know Him. How do you know which parts are from Him and which parts the church thought up? If believing the resurrection is so CRUCIAL to being saved, why are the accounts all different? Come to think of it, why are the instructions on how to be saved different?

Do you even KNOW what tiny verses your church's doctrine is based on? Why does God allow thousands of different denominations based on the same book, and many of them think the others are going to hell??

Is that what He intended by giving man a confusing and contradictory guidebook?

September 16, 2005

All I see is someone telling me in an estimated 24,000 characters and with way too many stipulations on how to address them, mind you, that basically "since I'm not sure, you can't be sure either." Pure unadulterated fucking genius. Please don't break your arm trying to pat your own back.

I got my point across in about 300 characters. See how that works? Thank you, drive through.

September 16, 2005

Well. THERE'S a chunk of my life I'm never getting back. Thanks for wasting my time, Reality. All those words and you didn't manage to say one coherent thing.

(Note to self: The NEXT time a Christian challenges me to read his entire, rambling post, just skip it! Sheesh! )

September 16, 2005

Reality, you're just making a new version of Pascal's wager. And it's a very cool little mind game, but doesn't consider other options.

You claim, because of your predisposition, that Christianity is the best, but why wouldn't a homemade (God revealed) religion be better? Why wouldn't Deism or Naturalism be better? If we do the wager, would the religion that would give best reward in the end, and have the worst punishment, be the one to choose?

Or lets see it from another view. Say if Christianity (by historical records proven to be true), would cause warfare and persecution of innocent people, then the worst thing to do is to choose Christianity, since we, humanity, actually then have something to lose by choosing it. We might or might not win an eternal life, but we have for sure lost the peace in the world.

The best choice is to stay Agnostic, and from there make the choice that best fits you. We need to learn to live with each other, and we need to have political and religious systems that allows diversity, instead of persecute the unbelievers.

September 16, 2005

Once you accept history, it's a fairly obvious step that this guy Jesus and his disciples EXISTED and had a major impact on our world - and that they would all either have to be some combination of skilled, extraordinarily well-coordinated con-artists / madmen... or sincere. Likewise, then, the Bible could be just a man-made anthology of old texts, or it could be that PLUS the absolute power's chosen method of revealing itself to the humankind stuck within this universe.

BAM! Right off the bat once you started talking about Jesus, I have a problem with what you're saying. Because I have accepted history (as I have studied it), and history shows that there is more evidence against Jesus & his disciples existing than for it. I'm not sure how much you've studied, but I've done quite a bit and have found plenty of sources that show that there is no reliable evidence to substantiate a verifiable claim as to the existence of Jesus.

Second, there is a large amount of evidence that proves the Bible to be a man made construct.

Time out: Here it is. Christianity COULD be true, and it COULD not be true. I don't know. And neither do you. There is belief, trust, faith... all those words based on a probability that is not 100%. There is not CERTIANTY of 100% in this context - therefore there is NOT KNOWLEDGE. There is only FAITH that Christianity either "is" or "is not" what we're looking for. Just like any religion. Just like any belief.

I've asked you this before. Given that it's not a certainty, how can you treat it as such?

To recap - Darwinism: yeah right. Big Bang: who cares either way? Now intelligent design: if you ever get a chance, go out to a deserted gravel road in the countryside, make sure there are no lights for at least half a mile on a clear, moonless night. Look up. That's not a cloud across the sky that you're seeing. That's looking toward the center of the Milky Way Galxy. That's trillions - yes, I said trillions - of stars... just in our own little galaxy - at distances which your mind is unable to fathom. Moving at unbelievable speeds around things that bend the boundaries of space and time. And there are many more galaxies, far, far beyond our own.

This is not a relevant justification for Christianity in my mind. it more supports deism still.

Look up facts sometime on how completely, unbelievably perfect for life this one planet is, compared to every other celestial body we have ever detected. Look into mirobiology... or chemistry, or quantum physics, or neurophysiology. Just look around when you step outside in the morning. Even if macroevolution WERE POSSIBLE... do you REALLY think that this all WOULD have happened randomly? Why do you look on a sunset and find it beautiful? I personally think it one of the most blatantly obvious facts about our world - if you trust that the world is really as it appears to your senses - that it has been designed and arranged.

This still isn't a justification for Christianity in any way.

Buddhism and any other religions (here come Islam, Judaism... even some forms of Catholicism IMHO) where you must follow rules and be "good enough" cannot be the truth - because we are all inherently flawed beyond hope. We don't even have any certainty what reality is - so how are we supposed to act somehow "good enough" within that reality?

You're quite the pessimist aren't you? Just a pattern I'm seeing with your writing & opinions.

Christianity is not the only world religion that owns up to the fact that nobody is perfect. HOWEVER, it is the only one that truly owns up to the fact that nobody is even all that GOOD. People may appear to be good sometimes, but what are their motives for those "good" acts?

How do you come to this conclusion?

Nobody ever has truly selfless motives for anything they do. Young children have not even learned to give an appearance of selflessness. Adults, no matter how charitable and how self-sacrificing their "good" acts may appear to be, are never completely selfless - even if only for the fact that they have chosen freely to undertake that "good" act... or for the knowledge of desirable consequences that the act will bring. Freedom and knowledge result in impurity of motives here. On the other hand, lack of freedom and lack of knowledge result in slavery and ignorance - but not purity. It's a lose-lose situation. I believe humans can never be truly, selflessly good. (If you have any backgrund in psychology, then this would be somewhere in line with the recent movement saying that there is no such thing as true "empathy.") Please, just think about it for yourself and see what you find.

It's only this way if your concept of good & self-sacrificing are limited by thinking that a person looking out for their own safety & well being first is a bad thing.

We've already seen how we cannot even trust our own beliefs and judgment. In just the same way, as long as we're discussing what is "good" - we have no authority to decide morality. We have opinions of things we like and things we don't like, but we are all just humans like everyone else. Who cares what any one of us thinks? How could a resident of Sim City authoritively declare to all other Sim citizens what was right and wrong for all of them?

We have every authority to decide morality because we are the only ones here answering the questions. If a supreme creator exists he's not giving us direct answers, and if he is you could say its that little conscience in our heads telling us to do positive things instead of negative.

In order to have a standard for good, we must have something capable of setting that standard. Here, once again, is The Absolute. If there is no such absolute, then there is no standard for true "good" - only for "practicality" or for "preference" or something similar. What is "good" - just like what is "true" - must come from the top down, from an absolute - if such a thing exists

Why must it?

This is opinion. My opinion is that there isn't enough proof to show where these measures come from.

Of all the world religions, Christianity's concept of good fits the best with what I see when I look at the world. It's true that a lot of the idea of "good" could have been developed on pragmatic concerns. But not all of it. Psychology has shown that human beings are not born as blank slates. We are born with a predisposal to sin, to defy authority, and to care only for ourselves

We are not born with a predisposition for sin & defiance of authority. Certainly we are all born with the natural instinct for self-preservation, that is true. But the rest of it is still applying Christian principals to behavior.

Other things about Christianity make me choose it over other world religions as well. It's historical accuracy. (Which I never said was perfect.) The fact that I have been born into a world where it is the dominant religion. (For whatever that's worth.)

If you think it's historical accuracy is keen, then I'd say you should do a bit more studying.

But I'm not saying that any of these things can or do have any impact on anyone besides me.

No one may hold me unreasonable for my beliefs, just as I may not do likewise to them. All beliefs, at the very basic level, are based on nothing but blind faith... and so taken alone would all be equally reasonable or unreasonable. Of course that is an argument from ignorance - that was my original point. IGNORANCE IS ALL THERE IS.

Everything is not ignorance. Ignorance is working without using the knowledge that we do have available in the world. It seems to me that that statement may actually be the height of ignorance, because we may not be able to know everything just yet, but there is plenty we do have to work with.

Why can't someone hold you unreasonable if you're willing to put your faith in something without having all the verifiable facts that exist?

Also, there's a difference between putting your faith in a structured religion and simply believing that a greater force exists.

We cannot trust our own judgment, and so, as any skeptics and agnostics realize... the only thing reasonable to do is to SUSPEND judgment. But that is the one thing we cannot do. We have to live, to make decisions, to go through life and react to stimuli. We have no choice but to each live BY something and FOR something... or to die

We most certainly can suspend judgement about an ethereal entity. Doing so does not mean we can't properly make decisions and work with the knowledge we have.

This is a big problem for me. "We have no choice but to each live BY something..." this sound like you desire to be subservient. It implies that you like having some other entity giving you your rules & mandates to follow, rather than using your own abilities to continually evolve & determine what works well & what doesn't.

OPTION A:
If I choose myself: I choose to trust my own theological, cosmological, and philisophical views. (Which MUST be fatally wrong in at least some area.) I trust my own judgment (what else can I do?) and go swing out into the rest of my life, then death, then eternity... based on my own reasoning... which I already know to be a dead end. (Unless Hindus are right, in which case it never mattered anyway. :-) I will live an ultimately meaningless life. Grow up, get money, breed, get old, and die. Congratulations.

OPTION B:

If I choose God: Then I obviously assume that He is guiding me and that I'll be okay (at least right ENOUGH about the important things). I personally find that it is not OVERLY likely that Christianity is true. But it is still definitely the best alternative to trusting myself - which I know will automatically result in death, or worse, for me. Not that Christianity IS true, but that it still could be... and that it could be more so than any other world religion. And that possibility is worth it all for me

How about Option C: You choose that something exists, and as you say, we haven't figured it out. So instead of following any specific man written mandate. You create a working set of beliefs that do the greatest good or create the most positive results as possible- and adapt & change as new information comes to you to increase your positive productivity.

If you're NOT serious, then I guess I would humbly recommend leaving this site for good, because it seems there is an abundance of people here doing a poor job of representing their own sides of the issues. That's neither productive nor helpful

Bad form my friend. Plenty of other places do the same thing. There is lots of good here as well. It's partly about what you choose to focus on. When you take into account why many of the people on here react as they do, you come to see how it makes sense and filter it out, hoping that those who are still bitter, angry or have negative feelings pent up can eventually come to terms with it.

Damn these evil quotes for not working!

September 16, 2005

quote=reality,Sep 16 2005, 10:18 AM

So you have knowledge (implying absolute certainty) about VERY few things in this world. You don't (maybe even can't) KNOW whether or not you're really awake right now. Let alone whether or not your own worldview is accurate. You can neither prove nor KNOW that Christianity (or any religion) is either true or false. You merely BELIEVE one way or another that a particular worldview (or any random fact for that matter) is true or false. You may call me an agnostic, an extreme skeptic, and a Christian. All of those would be correct. What I'm saying is that certainty is impossible to attain about most things in this world.

Basically, you are taking the highground, telling us that you and we don't know anything, and hence we should listen to you, because you have something that you know. Hmmm...

You have no 100% certainties. You only have probability. For every event or observation, there is always more than one possible explanation. You decide within your own mind what the most probable explanation for the given observation may be.

With a 50/50 chance that God exists or not. With every sign or lack thereof the chances will lean towards one way or the other. God never reveals himself, and never answer prayer (since that would be considered testing him), while science explains more and more of the "mysterious" questions we have about life. It seems more likely science is getting the answers, and religion is not.

My point is that all your prior probabilities are arbitrary. You believe what you believe because of NO objective reason WHATSOEVER - only because of blind faith. You cannot reasonably have ANY trust in your own judgments about what is true because there is nothing to base that trust on besides the faith of a child.

Okay, I'll walk with you here; no one can trust their senses or knowledge, because it's based on perceived reality that could be a virtual world. Our understanding, trust, faith and believe comes from experience.

2. Why I can trust deism: Perfection IS perfect.

We can't know that, since we have no knowledge and can't trust our knowledge.

I have no knowledge of perfection. My knowledge and understanding of perfection is based on faith and trust, and can't be trusted.

So, human beings know little to nothing with certainty. Perhaps the only thing that you or I know is that "something exists" and that "I" am a part of that "something" - whatever that is.

Do I see a Descartes popping up here?

You see, the problem lies in definition. Of course I can know that I'm here in this room, for whatever that's worth - but the real trick is WHAT this room is, and WHAT I really am. (You see, saying "I am here in this room" turns out to be not "worth" much if you don't know what you or the room really are.)

Ultimately, the definitions of me and of this room, and of everything else in existence are relative to every single partical of matter / non-matter that exists.

Everything in this universe is relative to everything in this universe. If I change position, I am changing position relative to everything in existence, which in turn minutely changes everything in existence.

Again, you said we can't know, so knowledge about these things are moot and can't be trusted. There's not molecules, there's no particals or matter. For all that matters, I'm the only existing individual in this fake world, and I am GOD. You don't exist, you could be a robot or a zombie, just trying to fool me into a false faith. Maybe you're the devil, and I'm God, and you're trying to deceive me!

Everything in this universe is relative, which means that for something to be ABSOLUTE, it would have to entirely permeate EVERYTHING in existence in this space-time continuum. It would have to be something foundational to the very fabric, the very making of this universe. If such an absolute exists, then it must be singular - otherwise it would obviously not be an absolute.

Again, you said we can't trust our senses or input, so I don't know if you're telling the truth here.

You may call this absolute God, The Force, Ahtman, Natural Law, whatever you like. But if there is an absolute, then it must be the SOURCE of all true knowledge because, by its nature, it is the only thing that is able to possess true knowledge. After all, it is the only thing that is in a position to naturally possess ALL knowledge, and could therefore NOT BE MISTAKEN about something.

I don't know if anything absolute exists.

So, if this universe happens to contain any substantial true knowledge worth having, it must come from an absolute, ("omniscient" in this application) source. Any lesser source cannot possess actual, certain KNOWLEDGE of just what anything actually IS. Kind of sucks for you and me.

And I still can't know this, and can't trust this.

And here is where God comes in. You cannot trust yourself, but if there is God, then you can trust Him.

No I can't, because when I decide to trust God, I indirectly decides that I CAN TRUST GOD[/i], which makes an assumption that I'm able to trust SOMETHING. And in your initial statement was that we can't TRUST ANYTHING! You can't have it both ways. Either we can't trust SOME things in this world, or NO things. By your own preposition that we can't trust anything, you have excluded any kind of knowledge or trust in God automatically. Your initial statement have to open up the posibility for us to be able to know something, and to be able to trust something. But you said we can't.

He can guide you, your thoughts, your life, your fate... your predestination. You see, with fate and predestination taken into account, the HOW and WHY are hopelessly complex issues that are worked out in Heavenly realms, not down here where we can understand what's going on. HOW and WHY are not the right questions to ask because we can't know the answers - but WHAT.

How can he guide me? I don't know if I can trust my sensory input organs that give me that information from God. It could be an evil god, the devil or just schizofrenia, and I wouldn't know the difference.

...and so on...

Please think back to (or just reread) my first thread. We can no more live without living for something and by something than we can move without going anywhere. You have no choice but to choose something to trust. Sorry - I know that sucks too (tell me about it) - but that's the way it is. Even if you choose "nothing", you are still choosing yourself and your own mind.

I can't choose something to trust, since you said I can't trust anything.

The only reason why you started the post that way, was to bring down ANY KIND of argument or trust I would have in myself or anything opposite to YOUR beliefs. So you break down everything I have and believe, and then you build up with your belief only. That is the same method cults are using to brainwash people. Establish trust, break down their trust in themselves and their own knowledge and opinions, build your trust, opinions and knowledge into them. Your post is a typical cult message.

But none of that will satisfy you. There is nothing in this world that lasts. Don't fool yourself - deep down, you know it just like I do. Nothing here will ever really give you meaning. Your own self cannot even give you meaning, because you will become someone before long who is no longer yourself. People get old, and stupid, and fuzzy-minded, and fat, and ugly... and senile... and diseased... and then dead.

You don't know anything about what I feel, think or believe. You're making a huge assumption here. According to your own arguments, you don't even know if I exists, so how can you assume me to be like you?

So what will you do? You can trust temporary, ultimately meaningless and worthless things, or you can look around for something that would go beyond that. There are two options: an ultimately meaningless life (make some money, breed, get old, and die... who cares?) in which we must accept relativism, or a choice to trust in an absolute that may make life bigger than death.

Life is bigger than death, since life is the only thing we do know we have. I'm not going to put death above life, and sacrifice my life for a hypothesis about death. If God wants me to believe, he will answer the last request I did to him before I lost my faith. He didn't answer, and I'm still waiting.

Here's an alternative answer:

Maybe this whole world is just a big experiement by God.

He wanted to see how and if we could figure out the big question.

He gave us false religions, including Christianity, to see if we could see beyond religion and establish world peace without stupid faith systems.

Currently everyone is fighting to keep their little piece of "truth" alive, and wouldn't hesitate to kill everyone else for this reason.

We're failing the experiment, by reinforcing all religions and not just let go and accept Agnosticism as the only truth.

September 16, 2005

Maybe this whole world is just a big experiement by God.

You mean were just a big God cocktail?

Does that make the Earth a dirty martini, mai tai, or a slow comfortable screw against the wall?

September 16, 2005

Well. THERE'S a chunk of my life I'm never getting back. Thanks for wasting my time, Reality. All those words and you didn't manage to say one coherent thing.

(Note to self: The NEXT time a Christian challenges me to read his entire, rambling post, just skip it! Sheesh! )

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm with Mr. Grinch.

September 16, 2005

But none of that will satisfy you. There is nothing in this world that lasts. Don't fool yourself - deep down, you know it just like I do. Nothing here will ever really give you meaning. Your own self cannot even give you meaning, because you will become someone before long who is no longer yourself. People get old, and stupid, and fuzzy-minded, and fat, and ugly... and senile... and diseased... and then dead.

You too will get old, and then you will die. There is nothing where you are going.

All your friends, and all your enemies, every last person on the face of the earth will go through a different story to meet the same ending. Each of us, in the end, faces death - completely and utterly alone.

There are no friends, no husbands, no wives. No sons or daughters, brothers or sisters. You may even be surrounded by your loved ones as you're going, but in the end there is nothing besides just you - and death. Alone.

So what will you do? You can trust temporary, ultimately meaningless and worthless things, or you can look around for something that would go beyond that. There are two options: an ultimately meaningless life (make some money, breed, get old, and die... who cares?) in which we must accept relativism, or a choice to trust in an absolute that may make life bigger than death.

Thank you for reinforcing the basic tenants of Buddhism.

But I have to wonder, why must you add an unnecessary layer to reality? If God is the ultimate and uncreated, than why can't the Universe be too? I really think you're trying too hard here...

IMOHO,

September 16, 2005

quote=reality,Sep 16 2005, 10:18 AM

{{Sorry in advance to any of you particularly bombastic people reading that last sentence - Christian, atheist, agnostic, etc. I don't care what you call yourself - just please maintain intellectual humility and DO NOT do any of the following:

* expect people to have had similar lives / worldviews to yours

* spout off or yell without ever really listening

* thoughtlessly and repeatedly shove things down people's throats

* make up cute little comebacks, one-liners or wordplay (Oh aren't you so clever?)

* assume you've heard it all before

* unleash storms of emotion and irrelevant personal issues

* dodge the real issues with humor, ad hom. attacks, spelling/grammar police, etc.

* call people names like some 5-year old kid

* presume to psychoanalyze and categorize others (whom you, by the way, know nothing about)

* launch tyrades of mindless profanity

* launch equivalent tyrades of mindless scripture quotation

* assume yourself to be pretty smart or assume others to be not-so-smart

Instead, I hope we can try to CONSTRUCTIVELY DISCUSS issues of truth! Do not be proud. Do not be angry. Do not be presumptuous. Basically, don't be a jerk... please.}}

(snip)

But none of that will satisfy you. There is nothing in this world that lasts. Don't fool yourself - deep down, you know it just like I do. Nothing here will ever really give you meaning. Your own self cannot even give you meaning, because you will become someone before long who is no longer yourself. People get old, and stupid, and fuzzy-minded, and fat, and ugly... and senile... and diseased... and then dead.

You're presumptuous here, which you told us not to be. See quote on top.

Not only do you tell us not to trust or believe our own senses, but then you tell us to believe what you tell us. You're text is coming to me through my eyes, which are sensory organs in my body, and I can't trust them. So, you lost your argument.

All your friends, and all your enemies, every last person on the face of the earth will go through a different story to meet the same ending. Each of us, in the end, faces death - completely and utterly alone.

Dying, not necessarely alone. Being Dead, sure alone, but how can A NOTHING be alone? This thread is just as futile as division by zero...

There are no friends, no husbands, no wives. No sons or daughters, brothers or sisters. You may even be surrounded by your loved ones as you're going, but in the end there is nothing besides just you - and death. Alone.

Being dead, being same state as everyone else dead, so no, not alone. Same as the rest, and same as you will be. You're joining the team at the end too.

So what will you do? You can trust temporary, ultimately meaningless and worthless things, or you can look around for something that would go beyond that. There are two options: an ultimately meaningless life (make some money, breed, get old, and die... who cares?) in which we must accept relativism, or a choice to trust in an absolute that may make life bigger than death.

If temporary is ALL that we GOT, then it's better to do the best NOW, before we're dead. To sacrifice everything here, just in case there's something over there, only makes sense if we could know what's there, but since we don't, then it's better to wait until we do know.

3. Why I do trust the Christian God: Perfection in an imperfect world.

Let me start by saying that it seems more likely to me that my senses are at least somewhat accurate. I kind of HAVE to trust my senory input because I really don't have much of another option. So as I said above, I CHOOSE to trust that this world is much as it appears, and therefore that history is not all a vast lie. You can't blame me for doing this, just as I really couldn't blame you if you said that all of history and everything we think we know IS a lie.

So you break down to build up your own. We can't trust our senses, but then again we can, but now we have to trust our sense according to the only direction you want us to go. What about the other directions that you excluded? Maybe God and the Bible IS a LIE? And maybe there is a TRUE religion out there that we missed because we trusted you?

Once you accept history, it's a fairly obvious step that this guy Jesus and his disciples EXISTED and had a major impact on our world - and that they would all either have to be some combination of skilled, extraordinarily well-coordinated con-artists / madmen... or sincere. Likewise, then, the Bible could be just a man-made anthology of old texts, or it could be that PLUS the absolute power's chosen method of revealing itself to the humankind stuck within this universe.

Once you accept history that Mohammed saw an angel from God, then you have to accept that Islam is the only true religion.

Time out: Here it is. Christianity COULD be true, and it COULD not be true. I don't know. And neither do you. There is belief, trust, faith... all those words based on a probability that is not 100%. There is not CERTIANTY of 100% in this context - therefore there is NOT KNOWLEDGE. There is only FAITH that Christianity either "is" or "is not" what we're looking for. Just like any religion. Just like any belief.

Islam too.

Okay, resuming now - I believe there IS such an ultimate as I described earlier because I look around and find it almost laughable to think otherwise. People on here seem not to realize that macroevolution has some serious, fatal problems with it that render it statistically and logically impossible. Look into it for yourself. As for the "Big Bang"... (no this is NOT identical or really even related to macroevolution) matter had to COME from somewhere. This universe cannot have existed forever in the state that it is now - by our very laws of physics and the way things are - that's impossible. The laws of our universe cannot have eternally been like they are now. This means that either the laws of this universe themselves exhibit expiration/mutation properties which we know nothing about, or that there is some outside influence that operates beyond the limited three dimensions we know.

So we can't believe Big Bang, because we can't trust our senses, but we can trust Christianity because we can't trust Big Bang? We don't know about all the laws of the Universe, and that's the explanation to why the laws don't exist, and God must have done it all?

This means that the Big Bang is mostly irrelevent to any discussions of the ultimate origin of our universe. To recap - Darwinism: yeah right. Big Bang: who cares either way? Now intelligent design: if you ever get a chance, go out to a deserted gravel road in the countryside, make sure there are no lights for at least half a mile on a clear, moonless night. Look up. That's not a cloud across the sky that you're seeing. That's looking toward the center of the Milky Way Galxy. That's trillions - yes, I said trillions - of stars... just in our own little galaxy - at distances which your mind is unable to fathom. Moving at unbelievable speeds around things that bend the boundaries of space and time. And there are many more galaxies, far, far beyond our own.

Which points to a pointless God. God totally overkilled the universe, just to take a miniscule fraction of matter to make humans so he could terrorize and punish them at will.

Look up facts sometime on how completely, unbelievably perfect for life this one planet is, compared to every other celestial body we have ever detected. Look into mirobiology... or chemistry, or quantum physics, or neurophysiology. Just look around when you step outside in the morning. Even if macroevolution WERE POSSIBLE... do you REALLY think that this all WOULD have happened randomly? Why do you look on a sunset and find it beautiful? I personally think it one of the most blatantly obvious facts about our world - if you trust that the world is really as it appears to your senses - that it has been designed and arranged.

Cheesh. You're really going at it. "It's beautiful therefore God must exist."

Then what about: "War is ugly, therefore God can't exist."

And no - it is still NOT possible for anyone to prove anything either for or against theism or atheism. Beautiful mess we're all in, isn't it? :-)

And your proof fails.

So there is an ultimate... but the real trick is - who or what IS it? Of the major world religions, Hinduism automatically discounts itself by claiming openly that it is a manmade construct. Even if it were not a manmade construct, it would make no difference in my life because it requires nothing of me and means nothing to me. If I die without following Hindu practices, then I will just be a little lower on the ladder next time as some other person or animal. And if I'm a Christian, then Hinduism's got me covered anyway because it says all religions are okay.

Mormonism has SERIOUS issues with historical accuracy and an utter lack of evidence for any of the things it claims have happened. If some of you think the Bible has problems, wow...

Buddhism was originally rather similar to Christianity. Over the centuries it has been subverted, splintered, and turned into a vast, man-made construct of rules and laws. (Sadly - this is also not unlike a good share of Christianity.) The difference here is that Buddhism thinks that man can actually do things himself. The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Five Precepts... really all just general rules in the first place. Do it yourself. Overcome. Just be good enough and work hard enough and you'll figure it all out. Obviously, my points on not being able to even trust your own judgment on whether you're awake or asleep conflict with this JUST A BIT. Buddhism and any other religions (here come Islam, Judaism... even some forms of Catholicism IMHO) where you must follow rules and be "good enough" cannot be the truth - because we are all inherently flawed beyond hope. We don't even have any certainty what reality is - so how are we supposed to act somehow "good enough" within that reality?

You said "* expect people to have had similar lives / worldviews to yours".

And then you expect us to accept your analyzis of other religions?

(snip)

Of all the world religions, Christianity's concept of good fits the best with what I see when I look at the world. It's true that a lot of the idea of "good" could have been developed on pragmatic concerns. But not all of it. Psychology has shown that human beings are not born as blank slates. We are born with a predisposal to sin, to defy authority, and to care only for ourselves.

Sin doesn't exist. Sin is a concept made up by the religion you're promoting.

My religion says you are born in XYZ, and you have to ABC to get DEF so you can go to GHI and become JKL for eternity.

IGNORANCE IS ALL THERE IS.

Very good point.

Ignorance is bliss.

And according to the Bible you're blessed.

You see, we must assume that we are wrong about something serious.

Then we should assume that your whole post is wrong.

OPTION A:

If I choose myself: I choose to trust my own theological, cosmological, and philisophical views. (Which MUST be fatally wrong in at least some area.) I trust my own judgment (what else can I do?) and go swing out into the rest of my life, then death, then eternity... based on my own reasoning... which I already know to be a dead end. (Unless Hindus are right, in which case it never mattered anyway. :-) I will live an ultimately meaningless life. Grow up, get money, breed, get old, and die. Congratulations.

OPTION B:

If I choose God: Then I obviously assume that He is guiding me and that I'll be okay (at least right ENOUGH about the important things). I personally find that it is not OVERLY likely that Christianity is true. But it is still definitely the best alternative to trusting myself - which I know will automatically result in death, or worse, for me. Not that Christianity IS true, but that it still could be... and that it could be more so than any other world religion. And that possibility is worth it all for me.

If I choose God, then I choose myself to make the choice to choose God. So in the end, you made yourself GOD.

By making the choice of God, you make yourself superior to God, since you trust yourself afterall to make that choice.

I think the above explanation answers most of the replies back to me that I have received. A few people have understood what I'm saying, but I think a large part have missed the gravity of it.

Oh no, I definitely understand very well what your saying.

If you're NOT serious, then I guess I would humbly recommend leaving this site for good, because it seems there is an abundance of people here doing a poor job of representing their own sides of the issues. That's neither productive nor helpful.

You said in the beginning:

* assume you've heard it all before

* presume to psychoanalyze and categorize others (whom you, by the way, know nothing about)

* assume yourself to be pretty smart or assume others to be not-so-smart

Do you think you have followed your own demands?

~ reality

September 16, 2005

You mean were just a big God cocktail?

Does that make the Earth a dirty martini, mai tai, or a slow comfortable screw against the wall?

Maybe it's a Sex On The Beach.

Nah. It's probably more like the rats in the maze... "where the heck is my cheese?"

September 16, 2005

Here's the Cliff's Notes version:

"We all know shit, but my shit is better.", Reality

My analyze: Reality stinks.

September 16, 2005

You're welcome Serenity.

Here's another question for Reality,

You claim to be Agnostic, yet you're trying to prove God.

Agnostic maintains the philosophy that we can't prove God or disprove God, so your attempt to prove God, especially through belief in Christianity, is contradictory to the Agnostic dogma.

I'm agnostic too, and an atheist. Personally I don't think there is a God, but I can't be sure, and I don't try to prove that God doesn't exist, but only try to open up the eyes of others the possibility that God doesn't exist. Yet, I totally support any deist, naturalist or christian too, but all comes back to what we believe, not what reasons for us to believe. Belief in a deity or not belief in a deity is a personal choice, based on experience and input through my "lying" sensory organs. But my eyes, ears, hands and brain is all that I got. I can't trust your eyes, ears, hands and brain, only my own.

September 17, 2005

So you guys asked for a response. Oh boy...

First off, I will not make the same mistake in tone that I made last time. I DO NOT CLAIM to have all the answers.

Bullshit. That's the whole point of your post. You're lying right off - not a good sign.

I do not claim to be anyone particularly smart or gifted. But for what it's worth, I think that reading this may do some people some good. Every bit of actual constructive discussion in search for truth is ultimately a good thing. I'm trying to help both myself and others to STOP AND THINK - which is always a good thing. THAT is why we are NOT ALL wasting our time here.

Note the "constructive discussion" thing - that's not what you're doing, and that's not what most of our "visitors" seem to do.

Sorry in advance for the freakin' essay. You guys know that complicated concepts take a long time to verbalize, but I'm going to try and tie all this together in ONE place - to make up for the fact that I'm leaving here soon. (Like I said in the first thread, I cannot in good conscience perpetuate the monster that is this site.)

Translation: You can't find anyone to turn into you, so you're running scared.

The following will end up representing most of the major thought throughout my whole life, so if you bother to actually read it, please read it slowly and thoroughly, and give it at least a little thought. If you don't read it, then please try not to criticize what you don't understand. May all of us learn at least something in searching for truth.

You're already presuming that you'll hold these same beliefs your whole life, if I read this statement correctly. That's a really stupid assumption to make, plainly speaking. People change, unless you're not a person.

1. Why I cannot trust myself or my own mind: Nobody's perfect.

So you have knowledge (implying absolute certainty) about VERY few things in this world. You don't (maybe even can't) KNOW whether or not you're really awake right now.

Lemme cut you off right here. First, this is an old argument - trying to plant doubt with a lot of existential shit. It doesn't work, since whether we're awake or not doesn't matter - if The Matrix taught me nothing else, it taught me that the reality doesn't matter so much as the perception.

Let alone whether or not your own worldview is accurate. You can neither prove nor KNOW that Christianity (or any religion) is either true or false.

The god of the Bible has not yet proven itself, and, furthermore, it has shown itself to be a liar by making false promises.

You merely BELIEVE one way or another that a particular worldview (or any random fact for that matter) is true or false. You may call me an agnostic, an extreme skeptic, and a Christian. All of those would be correct. What I'm saying is that certainty is impossible to attain about most things in this world.

And yet, we still search. Ever hear of this newfangled thing called "science"? That's searching for answers in the most logical way possible. That's why we have science.

You have no 100% certainties. You only have probability. For every event or observation, there is always more than one possible explanation. You decide within your own mind what the most probable explanation for the given observation may be.

But as long as a single "probability" continues, it inches toward fact. Furthermore, by this token, does that mean that there's a "probability" that when you breathe, little green imps carry the oxygen to your body parts in glass balls? It could be a "probability", and yet I'd wager you don't think about it.

How do you decide this? You assign those probability weights in your mind, and whatever interpretation has the biggest probability, you end up believing. It's a little stupid, after all, to expect somebody else to believe something that they view as false.

You just shot your gun off early, there, Barney. Why should you expect me to believe anything you say if you believe this?

{{Sorry in advance to any of you particularly bombastic people reading that last sentence - Christian, atheist, agnostic, etc. I don't care what you call yourself - just please maintain intellectual humility and DO NOT do any of the following:

* expect people to have had similar lives / worldviews to yours

* spout off or yell without ever really listening

* thoughtlessly and repeatedly shove things down people's throats

* make up cute little comebacks, one-liners or wordplay (Oh aren't you so clever?)

* assume you've heard it all before

* unleash storms of emotion and irrelevant personal issues

* dodge the real issues with humor, ad hom. attacks, spelling/grammar police, etc.

* call people names like some 5-year old kid

* presume to psychoanalyze and categorize others (whom you, by the way, know nothing about)

* launch tyrades of mindless profanity

* launch equivalent tyrades of mindless scripture quotation

* assume yourself to be pretty smart or assume others to be not-so-smart

Take a good look at that list. You've done many of those things already. You're a hypocrite.

Furthermore, you don't tell me what to do. Until the day that it says "admin" under your name, you will not tell me what to do. Do I make myself clear?

Instead, I hope we can try to CONSTRUCTIVELY DISCUSS issues of truth! Do not be proud. Do not be angry. Do not be presumptuous. Basically, don't be a jerk... please.}}

Starting with the Xtian buzzwords - "pride", defined as "thinking for oneself without fear of divine retribution for not following". You're filth.

Okay, so... You believe things because your experience and life have led you to assign higher prior probability to the truthfulness of certain explanations for certain observations. The problem with this is that everyone's experiences and lives are subjective things based only on sensory input, which is itself interpreted and accepted based on... what?

If you're looking for a purely objective viewpoint, you'll never find it. Don't try to establish one.

There is pretty much NOTHING (at least in this world - just keep reading - ESPECIALLY those of you with a philisophical background who are thinking "a priori" right about now) to base it on. What would you use besides sensory input to determine the truthfulness of sensory input? You have nothing substantial to base it on. Basically, all you have is blind faith.

Old argument - "YOU HAEV TEH FAITH BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE THIBNGS SO WHY NOT IN GAAAWD?!111" It doesn't work when hit-and-runs do it, it doesn't work when you do it, and I'd advise you never try doing it again.

You've already lost every shred of credibility you have. Try not to dig the hole any deeper.

What makes you think that's air that you're breathing? Reason. Based on experience. Based on sensory input. Which you have no way of really knowing how accurate it may be. You just accept it because you find no real reason to doubt. (So maybe that's what THEY want you to think - and now they finally have you fooled into believing that you're breathing air. :-)

See my earlier treatise on this. You're ignorant as all hell.

My point is that all your prior probabilities are arbitrary. You believe what you believe because of NO objective reason WHATSOEVER - only because of blind faith. You cannot reasonably have ANY trust in your own judgments about what is true because there is nothing to base that trust on besides the faith of a child.

You're still trying this bullshit? Amazing. How dumb can you be?

Okay, so we've deconstructed to the bottom. Let's go up from here, shall we?

No, let's continue down. What makes you think there's anything in the universe but emptiness? Faith? Sorry, that doesn't matter, since it's all just arbitrary probability bullshit in your head.

I can play your little pseudo-philosoher games, child. Don't try to outwit me.

Notice I said that there is nothing in THIS world to base any judgment on. (God, if such a thing exists, is not of this world.)

Irrelevant. Our experiences do not merely occur on Earth. Our space voyages have shown us things that we did not know beforehand.

Furthermore, if a god exists, it must be part OF existence, or it cannot exist.

2. Why I can trust deism: Perfection IS perfect.

Nothing's perfect, therefore perfection cannot exist. Argument dismantled.

So, human beings know little to nothing with certainty. Perhaps the only thing that you or I know is that "something exists" and that "I" am a part of that "something" - whatever that is. You see, the problem lies in definition. Of course I can know that I'm here in this room, for whatever that's worth - but the real trick is WHAT this room is, and WHAT I really am. (You see, saying "I am here in this room" turns out to be not "worth" much if you don't know what you or the room really are.)

And yet, I can assume about the room you are in thanks to years of experiencing rooms. I can assume it has walls and a floor, and probably a ceiling (I doubt you'd put a computer in an open-air room - too much risk of rain). I can assume the properties of myself, having been me for something in the neighborhood of 21 years.

Ultimately, the definitions of me and of this room, and of everything else in existence are relative to every single partical of matter / non-matter that exists. Everything in this universe is relative to everything in this universe. If I change position, I am changing position relative to everything in existence, which in turn minutely changes everything in existence.

Which, you realize, has no larger significance overall. You're emrely trying to make it seem more important than it is.

Everything in this universe is relative, which means that for something to be ABSOLUTE, it would have to entirely permeate EVERYTHING in existence in this space-time continuum. It would have to be something foundational to the very fabric, the very making of this universe. If such an absolute exists, then it must be singular - otherwise it would obviously not be an absolute.

There is no absolute. Nothing has yet shown itself to be absolute.

You may call this absolute God, The Force, Ahtman, Natural Law, whatever you like. But if there is an absolute, then it must be the SOURCE of all true knowledge because, by its nature, it is the only thing that is able to possess true knowledge. After all, it is the only thing that is in a position to naturally possess ALL knowledge, and could therefore NOT BE MISTAKEN about something.

You're arguing from your own beliefs, assuming we all believe them. WE DON'T. You're losing.

So, if this universe happens to contain any substantial true knowledge worth having, it must come from an absolute, ("omniscient" in this application) source. Any lesser source cannot possess actual, certain KNOWLEDGE of just what anything actually IS. Kind of sucks for you and me.

Some knowledge is better than none at all. Too bad you seem to reject all knowledge for trite little philosophy games.

And here is where God comes in. You cannot trust yourself, but if there is God, then you can trust Him. He can guide you, your thoughts, your life, your fate... your predestination. You see, with fate and predestination taken into account, the HOW and WHY are hopelessly complex issues that are worked out in Heavenly realms, not down here where we can understand what's going on. HOW and WHY are not the right questions to ask because we can't know the answers - but WHAT.

You presume the ideas of "fate" and "preordination" to be truthful. I cannot see how they are. I believe man makes his own destiny. What was that you said earlier about not presuming to be an obnoxious little know-it-all?

You're like Hermione Granger, minus all the good aspects and plus a really smug bent.

WHAT you ultimately put your trust in is the one thing that will define your life. You won't know what you have ultimately put your trust in until the day you die and can look back on a completed life, which you ended up spending living FOR and BY something.

I live for myself. That you refuse to acknowledge and respect that speaks volumes about you.

Please think back to (or just reread) my first thread. We can no more live without living for something and by something than we can move without going anywhere.

Prove it.

You have no choice but to choose something to trust. Sorry - I know that sucks too (tell me about it) - but that's the way it is. Even if you choose "nothing", you are still choosing yourself and your own mind.

Which isn't "nothing", as we already said it was. You're arguing that 1 == 0. It don't work that way.

Or you can choose just about anything you like. Some people choose music, others choose some girl or some guy, or plural girls or guys, some choose power, or money, or fame. Others, like you and I, are strongly tempted to choose only themselves and their own minds.

I call bullshit. You aren't tempted to - you're "choosing" a ridiculous construct.

But none of that will satisfy you. There is nothing in this world that lasts. Don't fool yourself - deep down, you know it just like I do. Nothing here will ever really give you meaning. Your own self cannot even give you meaning, because you will become someone before long who is no longer yourself. People get old, and stupid, and fuzzy-minded, and fat, and ugly... and senile... and diseased... and then dead.

And? What the fuck does that even MATTER?! So I'll age. Big fucking deal! You act like you need reassurance that you won't, you fucking pansy!

You too will get old, and then you will die. There is nothing where you are going.

That's why I live for NOW, rather than what might not be. Funny thing, that - I live my life rather than waiting for it to end, like some death cultist.

All your friends, and all your enemies, every last person on the face of the earth will go through a different story to meet the same ending. Each of us, in the end, faces death - completely and utterly alone.

Ah, but you're wrong there - one doesn't have to be alone when one dies. One can have these revolutionary things called FRIENDS. You don't seem to understand that - your only friend is probably your little deity-construct.

There are no friends, no husbands, no wives. No sons or daughters, brothers or sisters. You may even be surrounded by your loved ones as you're going, but in the end there is nothing besides just you - and death. Alone.

You're trying to argue for self-delusion. You're becoming more ignorant by the minute.

So what will you do? You can trust temporary, ultimately meaningless and worthless things, or you can look around for something that would go beyond that. There are two options: an ultimately meaningless life (make some money, breed, get old, and die... who cares?) in which we must accept relativism, or a choice to trust in an absolute that may make life bigger than death.

In other words, acceptance of life's limitations, or self-delusion. You're not winning any points here.

Here's where Christianity comes in for me personally. (Yes, open to Pascal's Wager and start up the happy Jesus music...)

No, I'm starting up the boss battle music from Tales of Symphonia. This is gonna be big.

Remember I said there are always multiple interpretations / explanations for anything. Two sides to every story... at least. In keeping with this line of thought, either Christianity may be something of a vast, peculiarly lucky conspiracy to bring false hope to the world - or it may be that it's true.

Or that it's a man-made belief that forgot its origins, as I've always thought.

So let's start at the bottom and go up to my belief in Christianity.

That called going DOWN, you simp.

3. Why I do trust the Christian God: Perfection in an imperfect world.

LIAR! The Christian god is a murderer, liar, and power-tripping tyrant. You're delusional!

Let me start by saying that it seems more likely to me that my senses are at least somewhat accurate.

What was that you said earlier about not presuming to be an obnoxious little know-it-all?

I kind of HAVE to trust my senory input because I really don't have much of another option. So as I said above, I CHOOSE to trust that this world is much as it appears, and therefore that history is not all a vast lie. You can't blame me for doing this, just as I really couldn't blame you if you said that all of history and everything we think we know IS a lie.

See earlier for my input on this.

Once you accept history, it's a fairly obvious step that this guy Jesus and his disciples EXISTED and had a major impact on our world - and that they would all either have to be some combination of skilled, extraordinarily well-coordinated con-artists / madmen... or sincere.

False dichotomy.

Likewise, then, the Bible could be just a man-made anthology of old texts, or it could be that PLUS the absolute power's chosen method of revealing itself to the humankind stuck within this universe.

False dichotomy!

Time out: Here it is. Christianity COULD be true, and it COULD not be true. I don't know. And neither do you. There is belief, trust, faith... all those words based on a probability that is not 100%. There is not CERTIANTY of 100% in this context - therefore there is NOT KNOWLEDGE. There is only FAITH that Christianity either "is" or "is not" what we're looking for. Just like any religion. Just like any belief.

And the old "atheism is faith!!!111" argument comes up again.

I know your belief is wrong. Why? I once asked your precious murderer god to help me.

HE DID NOTHING. And don't tell me that that was his way of helping - the only way for him to actually help would have been to intervene, and he did nothing. It says quite clearly in your precious fucking Bible that those who ask for help WILL GET IT. I didn't. I know now that you and all your bretheren are lying filth.

Okay, resuming now - I believe there IS such an ultimate as I described earlier because I look around and find it almost laughable to think otherwise. People on here seem not to realize that macroevolution has some serious, fatal problems with it that render it statistically and logically impossible. Look into it for yourself.

I have. And you're a lying piece of shit. There are infinite reasons why you're wrong, and I'm not even going to go into them - I'll leave that to people who are better than I, such as Mr. Neil.

All I'm going to say is, evolution has already been proven. YOU MUST PRESENT YOUR EVIDENCE, OR ADMIT DEFEAT.

As for the "Big Bang"... (no this is NOT identical or really even related to macroevolution) matter had to COME from somewhere. This universe cannot have existed forever in the state that it is now - by our very laws of physics and the way things are - that's impossible.

Therefore, your god cannot have always existed, and must have come from somewhere. And whatever created it must have come from somewhere. And whatever created whatever created it must have come from somewhere.

I can do this all day, or at least until it's 6:00 here (that's when the library closes).

The laws of our universe cannot have eternally been like they are now. This means that either the laws of this universe themselves exhibit expiration/mutation properties which we know nothing about, or that there is some outside influence that operates beyond the limited three dimensions we know.

Or that they were established when the universe wwas, perhaps? Stop making false dichotomies, you ignorant bastard.

This means that the Big Bang is mostly irrelevent to any discussions of the ultimate origin of our universe. To recap - Darwinism: yeah right.

PROVE IT!

Big Bang: who cares either way? Now intelligent design: if you ever get a chance, go out to a deserted gravel road in the countryside, make sure there are no lights for at least half a mile on a clear, moonless night. Look up. That's not a cloud across the sky that you're seeing. That's looking toward the center of the Milky Way Galxy. That's trillions - yes, I said trillions - of stars... just in our own little galaxy - at distances which your mind is unable to fathom. Moving at unbelievable speeds around things that bend the boundaries of space and time. And there are many more galaxies, far, far beyond our own.

And your point?

Look up facts sometime on how completely, unbelievably perfect for life this one planet is, compared to every other celestial body we have ever detected. Look into mirobiology... or chemistry, or quantum physics, or neurophysiology. Just look around when you step outside in the morning. Even if macroevolution WERE POSSIBLE... do you REALLY think that this all WOULD have happened randomly?

Nobody says that, you ignorant fuck! Try reading sometime!

Furthermore, your entire statement here is an argument from ignorance - "I don't understand it, so GAAAWD did it".

Why do you look on a sunset and find it beautiful? I personally think it one of the most blatantly obvious facts about our world - if you trust that the world is really as it appears to your senses - that it has been designed and arranged.

Because you're too ignorant to think otherwise. You're not coming up with anything new, you know. You might want to get the hell out and never come back now, or you'll be laughed at.

Oh, wait, you already are.

And no - it is still NOT possible for anyone to prove anything either for or against theism or atheism. Beautiful mess we're all in, isn't it? :-)

Fuck you. By that argument, your post is pointless. Try thinking sometime.

So there is an ultimate...

Unestablished. Insuficient evidence.

(snipped screed against religions - another piece of evidence that we're dealing with a veiled preacher wanna-be)

Here's where pac-man can't fly a plane, and where the residents of Sim City find themselves unable to reach Bill Gates when they call on the sim-phone.

That's because it's likely that Bill isn't playing Sim City. But he might be, and then they can reach him in their little virtual world. Ever open up that little "voice" thing? That's them telling you how bad of a mayor you are.

Christianity is not the only world religion that owns up to the fact that nobody is perfect. HOWEVER, it is the only one that truly owns up to the fact that nobody is even all that GOOD. People may appear to be good sometimes, but what are their motives for those "good" acts?

In other words, you believe it simply because it says a couple things you agree with. That's a pretty stupid way of deciding.

Nobody ever has truly selfless motives for anything they do. Young children have not even learned to give an appearance of selflessness. Adults, no matter how charitable and how self-sacrificing their "good" acts may appear to be, are never completely selfless - even if only for the fact that they have chosen freely to undertake that "good" act...

Just because you're a selfish fuck doesn't mean that everyone else is. Anyone arguing this has no perception of other human beings, and is only trying to justify theit own selfish behavior.

or for the knowledge of desirable consequences that the act will bring. Freedom and knowledge result in impurity of motives here. On the other hand, lack of freedom and lack of knowledge result in slavery and ignorance - but not purity.

You mean like what you have?

It's a lose-lose situation. I believe humans can never be truly, selflessly good. (If you have any backgrund in psychology, then this would be somewhere in line with the recent movement saying that there is no such thing as true "empathy.") Please, just think about it for yourself and see what you find.

We've already seen how we cannot even trust our own beliefs and judgment. In just the same way, as long as we're discussing what is "good" - we have no authority to decide morality. We have opinions of things we like and things we don't like, but we are all just humans like everyone else. Who cares what any one of us thinks? How could a resident of Sim City authoritively declare to all other Sim citizens what was right and wrong for all of them?

I'd wager that there's a few of them on the street corners, saying the same kind of shit you are.

In order to have a standard for good, we must have something capable of setting that standard. Here, once again, is The Absolute. If there is no such absolute, then there is no standard for true "good" - only for "practicality" or for "preference" or something similar. What is "good" - just like what is "true" - must come from the top down, from an absolute - if such a thing exists.

WRONG AGAIN! There is no absolute good or evil. You will always find some crazy fucker who can justify anything.

If there was an absolute good, there would be no murder, no rape, no theft. Since there is not, you lose, Kenobi.

Of all the world religions, Christianity's concept of good fits the best with what I see when I look at the world. It's true that a lot of the idea of "good" could have been developed on pragmatic concerns. But not all of it. Psychology has shown that human beings are not born as blank slates. We are born with a predisposal to sin, to defy authority, and to care only for ourselves.

In other words, we are HUMAN! Quit trying to dodge your humanity.

Other things about Christianity make me choose it over other world religions as well. It's historical accuracy. (Which I never said was perfect.) The fact that I have been born into a world where it is the dominant religion. (For whatever that's worth.)

Sun-worship was once dominant. Does that mean that sun-worship is true?

Pagan beliefs were once dominant. Does that mean that Paganism is true?

Lack of religion was once dominant. Does that mean that lack of religion is true?

Arguing from popularity is pretty stupid. It's the bandwagon approach. And it's pretty weak.

But I'm not saying that any of these things can or do have any impact on anyone besides me.

4. All Together Now...

No one may hold me unreasonable for my beliefs, just as I may not do likewise to them. All beliefs, at the very basic level, are based on nothing but blind faith... and so taken alone would all be equally reasonable or unreasonable. Of course that is an argument from ignorance - that was my original point. IGNORANCE IS ALL THERE IS.

Only in your mind. You choose to remain ignorant by holding to this "I'm right, you're wrong" bit. I choose to listen to others unless they prove that they have nothing of value. You're done just that about a thousand times in this post.

You see, we must assume that we are wrong about something serious. Maybe it's true that there are a lot of people in the world, so you might think that SOMEBODY would have to be lucky enough to be right about all the important things. Not true, though: think of the sheer number of possible combinations of beliefs that you COULD have about who you will talk to today... let alone something as big and complex as the existence of God, or the nature of our universe, etc.

You continue to argue from your own ignorance, presuming that we share it.

We cannot trust our own judgment, and so, as any skeptics and agnostics realize... the only thing reasonable to do is to SUSPEND judgment. But that is the one thing we cannot do. We have to live, to make decisions, to go through life and react to stimuli. We have no choice but to each live BY something and FOR something... or to die.

And you're still trying that? Are you insane?

For me, the choice is between myself and God.

OPTION A:

If I choose myself: I choose to trust my own theological, cosmological, and philisophical views. (Which MUST be fatally wrong in at least some area.) I trust my own judgment (what else can I do?) and go swing out into the rest of my life, then death, then eternity... based on my own reasoning... which I already know to be a dead end. (Unless Hindus are right, in which case it never mattered anyway. :-) I will live an ultimately meaningless life. Grow up, get money, breed, get old, and die. Congratulations.

Wrong. You belittle life's experiences by dismissing them. You choose to center your life on death. You will live in hopelessness as long as you hold to that.

OPTION B:

If I choose God: Then I obviously assume that He is guiding me and that I'll be okay (at least right ENOUGH about the important things). I personally find that it is not OVERLY likely that Christianity is true. But it is still definitely the best alternative to trusting myself - which I know will automatically result in death, or worse, for me. Not that Christianity IS true, but that it still could be... and that it could be more so than any other world religion. And that possibility is worth it all for me.

You're wagering your life on your death. Not smart.

I will gladly give up comforts in this life for the possibility that there is something more, and that it is ETERNAL. When one begins to understand what ETERNAL means, I think Pascal's Wager becomes a non-issue.

No, that is the exact substance of Pascal's Wager, word-for-word.

Even a relatively decent chance of true meaning in life is worth it for anything that ETERNAL. Eternity is a very, very long time. No, it's longer than that.

What was that you said earlier about not presuming to be an obnoxious little know-it-all?

And even if I'm wrong, I have only given up a few creature comforts, temporary pleasures, etc. I have lived a "moral life". It all becomes meaningless by the time we grow old anyway. There is nothing really all that much to be gained or lost in this world besides love and a free life. Everybody alike deals with pain, sickness, and death. It doesn't matter who you are - but I think that there IS the possiblity of LIFE, which makes it all worth it for me.

And yet you forego life for death. You're lying right to our virtual faces. You're a fucking moron!

In this way, perhaps the possiblity of TRUE meaning in life is the only real meaning there is.

FINALLY, you say something that makes sense! Too bad you miss the point on that and everything else!

So, like I said, yes you may call me agnostic, yes I'm a (pathologically extreme) skeptic, and yes those are both big reasons why I am ALSO a Christian. I don't KNOW that there is a God, just like nobody can KNOW much of anything. But I have faith, just like everyone has faith in something.

Every time you say that, it just makes you look like more of a dumbass.

I think the above explanation answers most of the replies back to me that I have received. A few people have understood what I'm saying, but I think a large part have missed the gravity of it.

If any of you are really serious about this issue, then I recommend reading something like "Warranted Christian Belief", by Alvin Plantinga.

I suggest you do some reading of things that aren't all "GAWD IS TEH REALS!!1" books.

If you're NOT serious, then I guess I would humbly recommend leaving this site for good, because it seems there is an abundance of people here doing a poor job of representing their own sides of the issues. That's neither productive nor helpful.

FUCK YOU. You haven't done anything but babble on with a lot of pseudo-scientific, pseudo-philosophical bullshit, and you DARE to say that we don't present our arguments well? Bullshit! You're projecting, you sorry little shit!

I will post a few more specific, directed responses to earlier comments (on the first thread - and maybe to some really good comments I see here) later... and then I'm done. Sorry, but I can't keep this up - I'm still perpetuating this site, and this thing was about 24,000 characters...

Then get the fuck out and never come back. I hope you are miserable for every single day of the rest of your pathetic, pointless, death-centered little life.

September 17, 2005

Well. THERE'S a chunk of my life I'm never getting back. Thanks for wasting my time, Reality. All those words and you didn't manage to say one coherent thing.

(Note to self: The NEXT time a Christian challenges me to read his entire, rambling post, just skip it! Sheesh! )

Mr. Grinch, was it, or was it not the most lengthy version of Pascal's Wager that you've ever read in your life?

Damn!

Reality, Please I implore you. Turn back to Little-Green-Manism before it is too late. I know you once believed. If you would just go back to the Little Green Man, everything will be OK. He wont' be forced to bite your ankles for all eternity after you die and you can live forever in his spaceship.

(side note) Reality, you have chosen the most ironic screenname, as you are the most out of reality apologetics poster I have ever met. You continually discredit your own beliefs with your apologetics and then end with telling us why we must believe. I hardly find you believable at this point.

Tell me about it!

I got chills up my spine when he went into Matrix-mode about not knowing if it is air that we are breathing.

Reality... HA!

September 17, 2005

Mr. Grinch, was it, or was it not the most lengthy version of Pascal's Wager that you've ever read in your life?

Actually I have Pascal's wager in a book, the way Pascal presented it, and it's pretty long. Maybe not that long, but it's definitely "over-worded", just like this one.

Damn!
Tell me about it! I got chills up my spine when he went into Matrix-mode about not knowing if it is air that we are breathing.

Hope you didn't hold your breath to check, and turned blue in panic... hihi

So which pill? ... red or blue? ...

Why I Was Wrong...

Recommended Posts

Guest reality

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

LloydDobler

Link to comment

Share on other sites

NimbusBirdMgp

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Guest Dragonblade

Link to comment

Share on other sites

nightflight

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Samurai Tailor

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Vigile

Link to comment

Share on other sites

nightflight

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Vigile

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Kryten

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Cynetix

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Checkmate

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ouroboros

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Eponymic

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ouroboros

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Eponymic

Link to comment

Share on other sites

zfunkman

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Skankboy

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ouroboros

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ouroboros

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ouroboros

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ouroboros

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Vulgaris Prime

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Fweethawt

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Ouroboros

Link to comment