StickWitch Posted January 28, 2011 Author Share Posted January 28, 2011 Face. Desk. Gailen, I do not actually hold that a mentally retarded person is any less valuable than a genius - I specifically said I choose /not/ to believe that, but that I think the assumption that we are soulless leads to that conclusion. I don't think we should accept that conclusion, and thus I do not believe that value is based on biological function. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galien Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 If you never wonder about what consciousness has to do with the physical world, you are as good as dead. Atheists are scared of thinking about these things, they are afraid to lose touch with what they think is reality. But actually their sense of reality is a mere shadow of a shadow of what the real reality is like when you are able to merge your 'small I' with the Cosmic Consciousness. Oh thats right, I keep forgetting you have much more of a grip on "real" reality than the rest of us mere mortals, How did you get to be such a know all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 The main response I've heard to this is "Well where did God come from?" If God transcends time... then that question is moot. How? Why does "where did X come from" relates to "transcend time"? Another response to this is "Science is expanding rapidly all the time. New research in quantum physics is looking promising into the beginning of the universe." My response to that is: Science doesn't trump logic. We use logic to work through science. Our universe exists within time, not out of it, and at some point it HAD to have a beginning (If you dispute this point I'm willing to go into that as well). Quantum mechanics does not disprove causality, or operate outside its laws. This is a simple property of time, and until scientists begin to figure out how to operate outside of time, I think I'm pretty safe in my assumptions here. So what's your view on quantum entanglement or the following article: Light goes backwards in time? Does that correspond to your idea of a forward linear concept of time and causality? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rev R Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Face. Desk. Gailen, I do not actually hold that a mentally retarded person is any less valuable than a genius - I specifically said I choose /not/ to believe that, but that I think the assumption that we are soulless leads to that conclusion. I don't think we should accept that conclusion, and thus I do not believe that value is based on biological function. Why must a living thing possess a soul to have value? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickWitch Posted January 28, 2011 Author Share Posted January 28, 2011 Ouroboros... I had an awesome post all laid out to that and then it got EATEN. So here's what I said in summary because I'm lazy. "Come from" is a time-oriented phrase. If there is no time there is no 'come,' because there is no time in which something could have 'not come' in the first place. And that still requires causality. You have no causality there is no travel, be it backwards or forwards or whatever. And note this all takes place 'within' time, so saying that something in time went back to create time is like trying to lift yourself off the ground by pulling really hard on your boots. Rev R Where else would the value come from? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overcame Faith Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Good thinking on your part, Stickwitch. I enjoy seeing people use their intelligence to think things through. I thought I would comment on some of your points. But before I do, I want to say that the general debate about some generic "god" is actually, in my opinion, an interesting, but purely academic exercise with not much practical application in real life. Now, the debate about a deity like Bible god (YHWH) or Koran god (Allah) is a whole different thing, indeed. That debate is important because if one determines that those gods exist (or that god, if one believes they are the same) and that the deity has expressed himself or themselves in a "holy" book, either the Torah, the Christian Bible, or the Moslem Koran, then we have in the minds of a lot of people what I would consider an all powerful tyrant loose whom people truly believe is telling them to do all sorts of terrible things. Those "gods" should be exposed for what they are - or, actually, for what they aren't. With that in mind, I will make some comments on some of the things you say. Anyway. There's the whole "Where did the universe come from?" question, the "You can't have a cause without a causer" dealio. The main response I've heard to this is "Well where did God come from?" If God transcends time... then that question is moot. Another response to this is "Science is expanding rapidly all the time. New research in quantum physics is looking promising into the beginning of the universe." My response to that is: Science doesn't trump logic. We use logic to work through science. Our universe exists within time, not out of it, and at some point it HAD to have a beginning (If you dispute this point I'm willing to go into that as well). Quantum mechanics does not disprove causality, or operate outside its laws. This is a simple property of time, and until scientists begin to figure out how to operate outside of time, I think I'm pretty safe in my assumptions here. I find the "first cause" argument to have some merit. It just seems to make common sense that if one goes back far enough that there has to be a beginning point for everything and for the beginning to happen something has to have caused it to happen. Where I think the "first cause" argument has a weakness, though, is with the underlying assumption that there had to have been a "first cause" or "first mover." Why does this have to be so? Even if we put some god in the place as the "first mover" then we are automatically admitting that not everything has to have a cause because this god would not have a cause. So, by putting god in place as the first cause, what you are really doing is acknowledging that not everything has to have a cause. If we just transfer that concept to the material world, then we have the same thing in essence. That is, we have no cause at all. As you should be able to see, it's just a very small step from saying that god does not need a cause to saying that matter does not need a cause. If God transcends time, then there never was any 'creation' of the time point. Singularity. Dimension. Whatever. This dimension existed perpetually, though I can't even use that word because it also indicates time. This implies, though, that for an absolute mind to create/spawn/exist with time, time could not be special. And here's where the extended bits of my reasoning go fuzzy, but I'll try my best. If an absolute transcendent being is the creator of a minor dimension, but the minor dimension could not have previously been nonexistent, then that means that the fourth dimension is absolute and inevitable. By implication we can also reason that all physicality, logic, and dimension, is absolute and inevitable. ...and somehow I got to the multiverse theory on this point. There's crap about the distinction between possibility and actuality that I can't remember where it goes in here. But the point was, that the general objections to 'god transcends time' I believe I have answers for. Abstract, vague answers, but they're there nonetheless. Time is only relevant when there is change to measure. If there is no change to measure, then there is no need for time. It's the same for a mile. If there is no space, no physical 5,280 feet to measure, then "mile" does not exist except as an abstract idea. So the measurement of length requires space whereas the measurement of time requires change. When we say something is outside of time, what we are saying is that there is no change to measure. That is, we are saying that its existence is infinite and changeless and, therefore, there is no change to measure by days, weeks, years, etc. But isn't this really just another way of expressing nothingness? Isn't that what nothingness really is - infinite changelessness? If there is any change whatsoever, then there is no nothingness and, hence, there is something for time to measure. That change is an activity that took an amount of "time" to happen. So for a being to be outside of time that being must be nothing. In other words, we cannot postulate a being outside of time which creates because if that being thinks or creates then it changes and is not "nothing." And if it is not "nothing" then there is something about it to measure so it is not outside of time. Another, less... 'logical' I guess you could say, is the idea of souls. If I assume that human beings are the natural evolved product of biology, then I must assume that human beings are 100% physical. If human beings are simply advanced biological machines, then inherent worth is not ... inherent. We are animals. If someone is born mentally retarded, or with extreme physical handicaps, there is no reason why we should see that person with the same worth as a movie star or the president of the united states. There is no 'everyone is equal' here. Worth is based on how advanced you are biologically, no other factor. Is there another factor? I don't want to come to this conclusion. The assumption that human beings are 100% physical has some issues on its own - namely the idea of concepts. Concepts are nonphysical, so how can something purely physical produce something nonphysical? We are aware of the idea of 'roundness,' but 'roundness' is not a physical object; it is an abstract attribute. How are we able to know that something abstract exists if we are nothing more than a collection of physical electrical impulses? The word you use is "worth." The concept of worth is subjective. For example, the Native Americans could not understand the European desire for gold since to them gold had no particular worth. So, if an early pioneer were crossing the American frontier with two bags of gold and ran out of food and went to a nearby Native American village to purchase some food, the members of the village would have laughed at the pioneer for offering gold in exchange for food. It would have bought him nothing. What you are doing is attaching a concept of "worth" onto people and arguing that absent a god to give them "worth," they may be seen as worthless. Not necessarily so. Though one could not have bought food from the Native American village with a sack full of gold, one could certainly have taken that same sack full of gold to London at the time and bought a lot with it. It is not a "god" that gives human beings worth. A god is incapable of that. We are the ones who assign worth, but we only do so when we come to see and agree among ourselves on value. When we see that the fact that a person is born a human being is value in and of itself, then we assign worth to each person no matter their physical infirmities or mental abilities. That's not god, that's us and we still have a long way to go, but I think we'll get there eventually. There's also the bit about morality. I haven't yet heard an atheistic explanation for morality that I'm fully comfortable with yet, but in this I haven't studied extensively, so I'm really open for suggestions here. My question about the morality issue is where is this morality that some "god" supposedly gave to us? Please show it to me so I may know and follow it. Perhaps a Christian will point to the Bible, but I will not accept that book as an objective morality. And I don't think I need to argue this point on this forum for people to understand where I am coming from. Perhaps it is somehow fixed within us by this god at the moment of our births or at our conception. If this is so, then where is the evidence of it? It has not constrained us as a species from killing each other with horrible wars. Of course, that is not to say that there is not something within us that acts as a sort of constraint or guiding set of principles. I think there clearly is. There does seem to be a universal sense of basic right and wrong, family and community connections and the like. But the question is from where did this come? Did it come from god or in some other manner? I recall C.S. Lewis claiming in "Mere Christianity" that this universal notion of right and wrong was evidence of god because it had to be a god who planted it there in all of us. As a Christian, I liked Lewis' explanation and used it frequently. But now after thinking it over carefully, I don't think it shows any such thing. It can be so easily explained by our evolutionary experience and does not require a god at all. The third reason I believe in god is abiogenesis. I can understand evolution working okay - I mean I think it has it's problems, but I'd also be willing to figure I could accept it given a bit more study. But abiogenesis? Really? I can't see any possible way that could have happened naturally, and no explanations I've heard even come close to this. Now, there's a difference between "No explanations come close" and "well we just don't know yet." If it's something non vital to a theory and most probably is just a matter of chemistry or building blocks, sure. I can accept 'we don't know yet.' But something this vital? And we can't come up with any hypothetical situation in which it would work, save a designer? Really? Abiogenesis is a good one to think about. I believe that the formation of life is a as natural a process as everything else in the universe. If the right conditions exist for life, then it will happen. But I believe our mistake in thinking about this is to form this bright line distinction between inorganic and organic. Our minds want to think of life as something absolutely different, completely set apart from the inorganic. I do not believe that is how it was when "life" finally emerged. There were very probably stages of a primary inorganic nature and with some life-like qualities which through time changed more and more until what we would clearly recognize as life emerged. But I don't think it was like a flash of lightening. It may have taken billions of years to occur. Those are some of my thoughts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Litassio - I like your "trippy stuff". Bravo!. Nondualism is a perfectly respectable philosophical position. Many great philosophers have adhered to it. I think that consciousness is not easily explained and I am not sure about causality either. Still looking into it. Just because there is not a complete answer does not mean we can't look into the question and theorize. Free will? I doubt it. Many of the great yogis of India said "you are not the doer" I believe that idea is in the Upanishads. We appear to do things - but I have heard and read where you do something before your mind fully registers "I will do (whatever action). In other words, the nervous system is late. It escapes my memory at the moment who conducted these experiments, but they are quite interesting. Needless to say society must operate as if free will did exist or there would be no prisons, no responsibility. But is it true on the absolute level - I think not. I said on another thread that morality cannot be derived from science. I still think that is true. Not sure we should devote too much time to the morality question since that is peripheral to the main question - is there a god? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Ouroboros... I had an awesome post all laid out to that and then it got EATEN. So here's what I said in summary because I'm lazy. "Come from" is a time-oriented phrase. If there is no time there is no 'come,' because there is no time in which something could have 'not come' in the first place. Ah. Ok. And that still requires causality. You have no causality there is no travel, be it backwards or forwards or whatever. And note this all takes place 'within' time, so saying that something in time went back to create time is like trying to lift yourself off the ground by pulling really hard on your boots. Only in this world. So what's your view on the "backwards in time light experiment"? But talking about time and causality, specifically when did God cause the Universe to come into existence? If the cause and effect were simultaneous, then the God-cause is a non-temporal cause, i.e. not the "travel in time" kind you're talking about above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted January 28, 2011 Super Moderator Share Posted January 28, 2011 Florduh:That doesn't really address anything I said specifically. Lovely thoughts, though. It addresses specifically the fact that it's all blind guesswork. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 ... The old IQ concept has been dropped and been replaced with new concepts. People who scored high on the IQ tests were not necessarily better in business. I heard about a research that was done years ago, where they noticed that Vale Dictorians did not end up with the highest paying jobs. There are different kinds of intelligence, and IQ is a poor measurement of them. There's a place for everyone. It's dangerous to measure people's worth based on their IQ. I'm sure your point was that IQ should not be conflated with worth, but it almost sounds like you are in the process conflating intelligence with success. Keep in mind, one can be quite intelligent, but not have the motivation to put that intelligence to use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Face. Desk. Gailen, I do not actually hold that a mentally retarded person is any less valuable than a genius - I specifically said I choose /not/ to believe that, but that I think the assumption that we are soulless leads to that conclusion. I don't think we should accept that conclusion, and thus I do not believe that value is based on biological function. Value is purely subjective. It really doesn't have much place in a discussion of whether or not a god exists. We value the lives of others because species whose members value the lives of other members of the same species are often more likely to reproduce than they otherwise would. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 I'm sure your point was that IQ should not be conflated with worth, but it almost sounds like you are in the process conflating intelligence with success. Keep in mind, one can be quite intelligent, but not have the motivation to put that intelligence to use. True. My comparison with success was just to show that IQ doesn't mean best. IQ is just one way of measure a person's abilities, and there's no real argument why success in intelligence is worth more than success in anything else. The point is, IQ doesn't stand on its own as a measurement for worth since there are other measurements of other abilities that IQ doesn't cover. It's not without reason that people with high IQ tends to be portrayed somewhat socially awkward. Social intelligence is not measured in IQ tests. So why would IQ be the measurement of worth instead of say a "social intelligence"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Legion: Again, I am not comfortable with throwing out an "I don't know." That was an answer for a lot of things in Christianity, and "I don't know" kept me hanging on to a faith that was only faith. I refuse to accept that anymore. I'm going off my own reasoning and the evidence that I have studied. Uncertainty is no easy out anymore. Let me suggest from years of experience. Life is filled with uncertainty. Let me ask you this. What are you absolutely certain of? No doubt whatsoever. Complete certainty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Humans have been spectacularly successful as a species, so we must have some kind of grip on reality. I cannot possibly imagine how you draw that conclusion. We've gone from a few thousand people in the plains of Africa to over 6 billion all over the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 We've gone from a few thousand people in the plains of Africa to over 6 billion all over the world. Like an unstoppable virus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 We've gone from a few thousand people in the plains of Africa to over 6 billion all over the world. Like an unstoppable virus. I have my own metabolism, thank you. I don't need to hijack other's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galien Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Humans have been spectacularly successful as a species, so we must have some kind of grip on reality. I cannot possibly imagine how you draw that conclusion. We've gone from a few thousand people in the plains of Africa to over 6 billion all over the world. Viruses also mutiply. Still not feeing ya And why do we even need to think we are all that? What purpose does such species congratulation really serve? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Viruses also mutiply. Still not feeing ya And why do we even need to think we are all that? What purpose does such species congratulation really serve? I think you're just trying to give me a hard time Galien. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galien Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Viruses also mutiply. Still not feeing ya And why do we even need to think we are all that? What purpose does such species congratulation really serve? I think you're just trying to give me a hard time Galien. Never. You have to understand Legion I really don't perceive the world the way most people do. There are so many things we just take for granted that this world teaches us, and those things often stand without challenge. I like to peel ALL the layers off the onion until I get down to the bare bones of agenda and motivation. It's a hobby, and I find it fascinating Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Let me save you the trouble Galien. I am motivated by a desire for control. Effective control entails that I have understanding. Therefore I first seek understanding. Happy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galien Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Let me save you the trouble Galien. I am motivated by a desire for control. Effective control entails that I have understanding. Therefore I first seek understanding. Happy? Very. One of life's great mysteries is exactly how the first year of parenting convinces us that control is an illusion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 control is an illusion Not really. I have limited control over myself and things in my surroundings. I just want more of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
par4dcourse Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Par4dcourse: ...I addressed that. Specifically. So people wouldn't have to bring up that point and I wouldn't have to go back and be like 'I addressed that.' Please try to be more specific and logical - and actually read what I say - when responding next time. Saying "god trancends time" is not addressing the question. You are simply saying that nothing can be created from nothing, except god. I could make the same claim of the FSM and you could not refute me, since his noodliyness is trancendent of time. Your claim your timeless dimensionless allpowerful god created the universe from nothing, and you call me illogical? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Not a being in the sense that God cannot be objectified in any way. He is the Supreme Subjectivity in which all objects including ourselves are a projection. According to what evidence? What is the use of speaking of existent or non-existent when you are considering a dimension where time and space do not exist? What is the use of me speaking about the existence or non-existence of someone in the next room when they do not exist in the same room I am in. Do you know of any dimension where time and space do not exist? When you look at the spatial dimensions of an object - its length, width, and height - don't those dimensions exist together, but are simply measured in different directions. Time seems to be just another one of those kinds of dimensions. We just percieve it differently. If something actually exists outside of the dimensions we know about, does that really mean that discussing its existence makes no sense? If so, why do you speak as if god exists? Another question, if your hypothetical god exists outside of the dimensions we occupy, then isn't god irrelevant to us? And what about your own existence, how can you be 100% sure that your whole existence is not just a very complicated dream you are unable to wake up from? One must exist in some form or another to dream. It is not meaningless, it is trying to make sense on a cosmic scale of why there is such a thing as the objective world and why there are living entities like ourselves who can have a subjective relationship with objects. Everyone starts and ends with the question 'who am I' or what exactly is the subjective 'I-feeling'? No it's not meaningless, or at least not to me and several others. Objects of all kinds have relationships with each other. We just happen to be able to have some awareness of our relationships to other objects. The flying spaghetti monster is certainly not like God because it can fit in your small mind and God could never fit in such a small mind since he is limitless [no time or space]. BLASPHEMY!!!!! The Flying Spaghetti Monster IS GOD. No beer volcanos for you!!!. If you never wonder about what consciousness has to do with the physical world, you are as good as dead. According to whom? You? Atheists are scared of thinking about these things, they are afraid to lose touch with what they think is reality. Do you think about the easter bunny? Do you wonder why a male rabbit is laying eggs? Do you wander what these eggs taste like? Do you wonder if he only delivers eggs to the good kids. If you do not wonder about these things, is it because you are scared? You have no idea what atheist think about. I think it is fine to speculate about what might be. What is not logically fine is giving mere speculations the weight of proven facts. Your charge against atheists is silly ad hominem bullshit. But actually their sense of reality is a mere shadow of a shadow of what the real reality is like when you are able to merge your 'small I' with the Cosmic Consciousness. And you know this how? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MagickMonkey Posted January 28, 2011 Share Posted January 28, 2011 Magick Monkey: I assume there is no time before the big bang. I don't believe time is capable of extending into the past for an infinite amount - that means we'd have to have traveled an infinite amount of time to get to this spot, which is problematic. Why would that be problematic? How is that any different than having an infinite amount of time in the future to travel? It's just a matter of perspective. If the big bang is the starting point, sure, all the energy current was present then. I have no problem with that. My problem is the fact that there was a 'starting point' at all. Why? If having a starting point is a problem, wouldn't time extending indefinitely in the past make more sense? And no - this is where the deeper bits of it come in. It is not magic, but it is all absolute. And when I say absolute I don't mean in the sense that it transcends, but that everything is absolutely inevitible. That's where I think I go more mindfucky, but I'm still working it out. xD And it doesn't give license to 'stop looking' for an explanation, but this sure as hell is more of an explanation than atheists have. Is it? Is it more accurate than any explanation atheists have? How can explanations based only on observed evidence be less reliable than pure speculation? Granted, physicists theorize all the time. They use what is known and use mathematics as a foundation, but there is a lot of speculation. However, theories aren't given the same weight as proven facts until they are experimentally proven. And your second point does not address the problem I brought up. Perhaps Overcame Faith's post addresses this to your satisfaction. If not, feel free to bring it back up again. Neither does your response to morality. To be fair, though, I wasn't very eloquent or specific there myself. Look, morality is just subjective abstraction. There is no reason to treat it as something different. If you are wondering why humans would have any morals, then is this fundamentally different than asking why humans have any subjective abstractions? Perhaps other posts have addressed this sufficently. Feel free to bring it up again. No.... no.... I've studied abiogenesis. When it comes to evolution I don't know exactly how it works - I'd explain it like I explain the TV. "Well, it sort of works like this, and that sort of works like that..." But if my child went "But it /can't/ work like that, because of this reason and this reason," and I went and looked it up and they were actually right, I'd be like holy shit, this TV doesn't work like I thought it does! If they told you it worked by magic, would you bother to look it up? Beside, in your hypothetical, the facts corroborate the children's explanation. When I see facts that corroborate a theists assertions, I'll take them seriously. Abiogenesis has no plausible explanation. I'm not willing to say "Oh, they'll figure it out eventually" when it's something so vital and something that presents such vast philosophical quandaries and improbable odds. It's important. I find it extremely hard to accept. They may not be plausible to you. What I've seen seems to be plausible enough. Life isn't magic. It is simply chemical reactions where molecules replicate themselves. It doesn't happen under just any circumstance, but it isn't magic. No, here I disagree with you incredibly. My theory right now, while not perfect, fills far more holes than atheism does. I would rather hold onto something even slightly more plausible than something to which you can only say "I don't know." Does it? Does it fill the holes with anything of value? I can understand the frustration of not knowing, but some things, you just have to get over. You can't wish your speculations into reality. Like I've already said, it is ok to speculate about what might be, but it does not make logical sense to give such speculations the same weight as proven fact. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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