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[Overcame Faith]

I'm a little sad that we chased Doug off so quickly. I guess all our talk about shaking the dust off his feet finally sunk in. Bet he is busy growling on his fundie forums about how apostate we all are.

Probably a thousand little churchies are praying for us right now!

 

And perhaps a few of the people in those churches that hear that there are actually others who have the same doubts they are having but are afraid to tell anyone about will come here and visit us to seek the truth for themselves.

[micksherlock]

Michael, back when my friend was trying to get me into Amway, they had voicemail boxes (this was in the 90s) you could rent so you could get official news and messages from your upline (your priests, sort of). He'd let me listen to the messages sometimes and every single time I did, there was some Christian prayer or inspirational message in the box. They had tapes and brochures and newsletters too, and all of these were strongly, ridiculously evangelical. GOD wanted you to succeed at "your business," so praying was a requirement.

 

I'm a little sad that we chased Doug off so quickly. I guess all our talk about shaking the dust off his feet finally sunk in. Bet he is busy growling on his fundie forums about how apostate we all are.

Michael, back when my friend was trying to get me into Amway, they had voicemail boxes (this was in the 90s) you could rent so you could get official news and messages from your upline (your priests, sort of). He'd let me listen to the messages sometimes and every single time I did, there was some Christian prayer or inspirational message in the box. They had tapes and brochures and newsletters too, and all of these were strongly, ridiculously evangelical. GOD wanted you to succeed at "your business," so praying was a requirement.

 

I'm a little sad that we chased Doug off so quickly. I guess all our talk about shaking the dust off his feet finally sunk in. Bet he is busy growling on his fundie forums about how apostate we all are.

 

Hi Akheia,

 

That is really interesting. I researched Amway for my book, but not being an insider, I did not get that juicy stuff! I think I made my point though, but what you have told me is really interesting.

 

Doug may be back. I hope so, I was going to issue a challenge to the members of this forum, to see who could de-convert him! To the winner, go the spoils!!!

 

No, but seriously, I think it is good to have Christians on here.

[PandaPirate]

TROLL!!!

[PandaPirate]

Doug,

There is something I really want to know.

 

If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse?

[mcdaddy]

Doug,

There is something I really want to know.

 

If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse?

 

I got this one.

 

 

The answer is....

 

 

GORGONZOLA.

[PandaPirate]

You guys are all giving Doug the attention he craves and, for a bunch of really smart people, if you can't tell that this is a joke, well, then, I just have to shake my head....

[PandaPirate]

Doug,

There is something I really want to know.

 

If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse?

 

I got this one.

 

 

The answer is....

 

 

GORGONZOLA.

 

Close. But the answer is:

 

None. Ice cream doesn't have bones!

[mcdaddy]

Doug,

There is something I really want to know.

 

If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse?

 

I got this one.

 

 

The answer is....

 

 

GORGONZOLA.

 

Close. But the answer is:

 

None. Ice cream doesn't have bones!

 

 

UUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!!! THAT WAS MY OTHER GUESS!!!!

 

i gotta go with my gut more.

[PandaPirate]

This thread makes me want to watch porn.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Hello Raoul, and welcome. Along the lines of what Legion and 3Dollar said, why not just posit that the universe is eternal? That position need not conflict with theories about the Big Bang. All the assumptions that are involved in positing a First Cause separate from the universe can be pared down, and the same work done, by positing an eternal universe. Even Aristotle held that the universe is eternal, and he criticized Plato's Timaeus for representing the universe as created. But if you go that far, it's really not necessary to hold to a first cause anymore. Cf. the atomists and Epicureans.

 

BTW Akheia - you're holding assumptions that are "off"? Say it ain't so! Come into the atheist swimming pool - the water's fine!

 

Can't posit it's eternal and believe the Big Bang occurred because they're contradictory. The Big Bang may have been responsible for the creation of the universe so this means it began with specific parameters and not eternal.

 

The BB couldn't have been one of a (an infinite?) number of events in an oscillating system? BTW I should have made clear that I meant by "universe" something like "all of reality/matter and energy" and not "the present, expanding system that traces to the BB." Starting at least with Empedocles, some ancient theorists posited recurrent cycles of expansion and eventual conflagration. Epicurus also talked about the spaces "between universes."

[Akheia]

Doug,

There is something I really want to know.

 

If you're paddling upstream in a canoe and a wheel falls off, how many pancakes fit in a doghouse?

 

I got this one.

 

 

The answer is....

 

 

GORGONZOLA.

 

There is nothing in the world that can't be resolved with a nice chunk of gorgonzola cheese. Oh man, I have GOT to stop hanging out here when I'm hungry.

 

Ficino, it is an endemic mistake among Christians to mistake "the universe" for "this big oodle of stars and galaxies we look at right here and right now," just as they mistake the cosmic fluke of coincidences that allows life to cling to this little ball of rock to be an example of "fine-tuning." I refuse to believe that some genocidal young storm-god created all this stuff--all these stars, all these galaxies--but then just put life in this one teeny tiny corner. It seems terribly wasteful to me. And then to care what we do with our winkies in private--that's genuinely creepy. And then to hide every single hint of evidence of his existence from everybody and make it all look like it just happened naturally--that's genuinely homicidal and psychopathic, if one believes in a hell.

[Ouroboros]

Ficino, it is an endemic mistake among Christians to mistake "the universe" for "this big oodle of stars and galaxies we look at right here and right now," just as they mistake the cosmic fluke of coincidences that allows life to cling to this little ball of rock to be an example of "fine-tuning." I refuse to believe that some genocidal young storm-god created all this stuff--all these stars, all these galaxies--but then just put life in this one teeny tiny corner. It seems terribly wasteful to me. And then to care what we do with our winkies in private--that's genuinely creepy. And then to hide every single hint of evidence of his existence from everybody and make it all look like it just happened naturally--that's genuinely homicidal and psychopathic, if one believes in a hell.

Agree.

 

I actually feel that the universe is too complex and chaotic for a "designer" to have built. It's beyond amazing. The theist God is not big enough to explain the beauty and majesty of the universe.

[Kaiser01]

Ficino, it is an endemic mistake among Christians to mistake "the universe" for "this big oodle of stars and galaxies we look at right here and right now," just as they mistake the cosmic fluke of coincidences that allows life to cling to this little ball of rock to be an example of "fine-tuning." I refuse to believe that some genocidal young storm-god created all this stuff--all these stars, all these galaxies--but then just put life in this one teeny tiny corner. It seems terribly wasteful to me. And then to care what we do with our winkies in private--that's genuinely creepy. And then to hide every single hint of evidence of his existence from everybody and make it all look like it just happened naturally--that's genuinely homicidal and psychopathic, if one believes in a hell.

Agree.

 

I actually feel that the universe is too complex and chaotic for a "designer" to have built. It's beyond amazing. The theist God is not big enough to explain the beauty and majesty of the universe.

 

The universe through the eyes of God is a boring one indeed.

[raoul]

Hello Raoul, and welcome. Along the lines of what Legion and 3Dollar said, why not just posit that the universe is eternal? That position need not conflict with theories about the Big Bang. All the assumptions that are involved in positing a First Cause separate from the universe can be pared down, and the same work done, by positing an eternal universe. Even Aristotle held that the universe is eternal, and he criticized Plato's Timaeus for representing the universe as created. But if you go that far, it's really not necessary to hold to a first cause anymore. Cf. the atomists and Epicureans.

 

BTW Akheia - you're holding assumptions that are "off"? Say it ain't so! Come into the atheist swimming pool - the water's fine!

 

Can't posit it's eternal and believe the Big Bang occurred because they're contradictory. The Big Bang may have been responsible for the creation of the universe so this means it began with specific parameters and not eternal.

 

The big bang doesn't HAVE to be the "beginning" of anything.

Then pray tell why did it happen? And does this mean the universe we live in was formed outside of the bb or in another universe or what? LOL

 

The big bang had "something" that "banged". It was the singularity. The singularity never "didn't exist" as far as we know. We didn't come from "nothing", we came from the singularity. Science doesn't say we came from nothing- in fact, acc to recent findings, even "nothing" is something- Lawrence Krauss.

 

Even nothing is something? Keeerrrriisst! How the fuck can one even address that absurdity. LOL

 

Look, I gave some very brief and I stress brief premises based on logic, philosophical arguments, mathematical probabilities (impossibility of infinite regress), and the final nail of Prof. Smoot's findings conclusively pointing to a singular moment billions of years ago when the universe literally exploded out of nothing. All I've gotten back was opinions and many self refuting contradictions just like the one you just cited. To say nothing is something is to say anything is possible or not possible which means I'd be a fucking asshole to continue trying to use philosophical arguments to defend a First Cause.

 

All things were created by something going back in time until the brick wall was reached where only one thing, a self sustaining thing, may have cause the whole chain to begin. To suggest that the self sustaining thing, and you can call it a fly or mosquito for all I care, had to have been created as some of you have said is to say there is no such thing as specificity and that there are actual infinites which I know most of you have no idea about. It is very frustrating to try to address each person's own personal view or as it should be called - an opinion. Because, as the soldier said in 'Platoon', "opinions are like assholes - everyone has one". LOL

 

Everyone is entited to their opinion that is is exactly that - an opnion. What I'd posited were more than opinions - they were conclusions based on some very logical arguments. Yes, some of them could be wrong but I believe they have a bit more weight to them than someone pulling something out of his/her ass and tossing it at me or anyone else.

 

10-20 years ago I'd argued in much more depth and detail some of the very brief things I alluded to over here. The debates encompassed weeks, even months of going back and forth with thousands of words being exchanged. Interestingly, the same thing pretty much happened. The intelligent and I stress intelligent theists (many of them definitely NOT xtian especially NOT fundies) laying out in painstakingly detail some of the things I briefly mentioned here. The hardcore atheists as I called them would come back with nothing more than speculative views based on things they simply thought of out of their minds rather than referring to research done. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

 

Like I said in the beginning, I'm not out to debate anything. This all began when someone asked me 'why I believed what I did'. I believe I addressed that in toto. Of course you are free to speculate your hearts away concerning why I believe what I do. However, if you do you might want to consider:

1. I'm not afraid of death so it doesn't matter to me if there is something after this or not. I'm not afraid because I was born into a literal hell in which I had to fight to survive day after day, week after week, month after month.

2. Some of you have lectured me about the universe being a very cruel place. You're preaching to the choir. Society, too, is cruel and even indifferent when it comes to the incredible crap that happens to people. Society doesn't give a shit - I knew this from the ripe old age of 4 years old living in a house with an insane parent whom no one had the gonads to do anything about.

3. If anyone should be an atheist it should be me based on everything I had to live through and survive until I was able to escape it by joining the Army. And I did, briefly, dabble in atheism (Ayn Rand's works gave me a start in an indirect way) but I felt atheism was too irrational because of its almost absolute rejection of ALL arguments and even proof offered of an Intelligence. And, as a side note, some of you don't even know what real atheism is about because you've tried to re-define it like the one who claimed to be an agnostic atheist or vice versa, I forget. Agnosticism is a far cry from Atheism because

4. I was an agnostic for many years. I was sure there was something behind the scenes so to speak. The xtian god as depicted in the bible? Nope. My views were based on the empirical arguments offered by minds far greater than yours or mine. Arguments based on both a-posteriori and a-priori nuances.

 

I know this will probably generate another shitload of 'wonderful' comments, so be it. ROFL

But I gotta go back to that Facebook thing titled 'Soldiers are not heros' - I'm a member there and it consists of people like me who are totally anti-war, anti-military. The crap has been hitting the fan and I gotta jump into the fray..

Later.

[raoul]

Hello Raoul, and welcome. Along the lines of what Legion and 3Dollar said, why not just posit that the universe is eternal? That position need not conflict with theories about the Big Bang. All the assumptions that are involved in positing a First Cause separate from the universe can be pared down, and the same work done, by positing an eternal universe. Even Aristotle held that the universe is eternal, and he criticized Plato's Timaeus for representing the universe as created. But if you go that far, it's really not necessary to hold to a first cause anymore. Cf. the atomists and Epicureans.

 

BTW Akheia - you're holding assumptions that are "off"? Say it ain't so! Come into the atheist swimming pool - the water's fine!

 

Can't posit it's eternal and believe the Big Bang occurred because they're contradictory. The Big Bang may have been responsible for the creation of the universe so this means it began with specific parameters and not eternal.

 

The BB couldn't have been one of a (an infinite?) number of events in an oscillating system? BTW I should have made clear that I meant by "universe" something like "all of reality/matter and energy" and not "the present, expanding system that traces to the BB." Starting at least with Empedocles, some ancient theorists posited recurrent cycles of expansion and eventual conflagration. Epicurus also talked about the spaces "between universes."

 

This is JUST the example of what I just wrote about in detail. When Smoot confirmed the big bang, he'd destroyed any premise regarding oscillating systems. In fact, Dr. Hoyle, a famous atheist/scientist who had been a firm supporter of the oscillating system conceded to Smoot regarding his findings.

[mcdaddy]

Nothing - "empty space" - is still some kind of a "field" with quantum events popping in and out of existence, right?

 

I don't know, man. Just stuff I've read from some pretty smart dudes. But who knows. This could all be the matrix for all we know.

[raoul]

Ficino, it is an endemic mistake among Christians to mistake "the universe" for "this big oodle of stars and galaxies we look at right here and right now," just as they mistake the cosmic fluke of coincidences that allows life to cling to this little ball of rock to be an example of "fine-tuning." I refuse to believe that some genocidal young storm-god created all this stuff--all these stars, all these galaxies--but then just put life in this one teeny tiny corner. It seems terribly wasteful to me. And then to care what we do with our winkies in private--that's genuinely creepy. And then to hide every single hint of evidence of his existence from everybody and make it all look like it just happened naturally--that's genuinely homicidal and psychopathic, if one believes in a hell.

Agree.

 

I actually feel that the universe is too complex and chaotic for a "designer" to have built. It's beyond amazing. The theist God is not big enough to explain the beauty and majesty of the universe.

Once more - another opinion and nothing more because you say you 'feel' the universe is too complex. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion there but you offer some rather confusing explanations. To wit:

1. It's too complex so it couldn't have been designed? Just because you cannot understand every nuance regarding it doesn't mean someone else, much more intelligent than you, me, and a trillion other beings, couldn't have designed it.

2. You say the theistic God is not big enough to explain it. Based on what? What logic? What philosophy? What empirical evidence? In other words, have you meant this god by any chance and realize he's lacking in some way? LOL

[raoul]

Ficino, it is an endemic mistake among Christians to mistake "the universe" for "this big oodle of stars and galaxies we look at right here and right now," just as they mistake the cosmic fluke of coincidences that allows life to cling to this little ball of rock to be an example of "fine-tuning." I refuse to believe that some genocidal young storm-god created all this stuff--all these stars, all these galaxies--but then just put life in this one teeny tiny corner. It seems terribly wasteful to me. And then to care what we do with our winkies in private--that's genuinely creepy. And then to hide every single hint of evidence of his existence from everybody and make it all look like it just happened naturally--that's genuinely homicidal and psychopathic, if one believes in a hell.

Agree.

 

I actually feel that the universe is too complex and chaotic for a "designer" to have built. It's beyond amazing. The theist God is not big enough to explain the beauty and majesty of the universe.

Once more - another opinion and nothing more because you say you 'feel' the universe is too complex. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion there but you offer some rather confusing explanations. To wit:

1. It's too complex so it couldn't have been designed? Just because you cannot understand every nuance regarding it doesn't mean someone else, much more intelligent than you, me, and a trillion other beings, couldn't have designed it.

2. You say the theistic God is not big enough to explain it. Based on what? What logic? What philosophy? What empirical evidence? In other words, have you meant this god by any chance and realize he's lacking in some way? LOL

Meant to say 'met this god' not 'meant this god'

[♦ ficino ♦]

Once more - another opinion and nothing more because you say you 'feel' the universe is too complex. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion there but you offer some rather confusing explanations. To wit:

1. It's too complex so it couldn't have been designed? Just because you cannot understand every nuance regarding it doesn't mean someone else, much more intelligent than you, me, and a trillion other beings, couldn't have designed it.

2. You say the theistic God is not big enough to explain it. Based on what? What logic? What philosophy? What empirical evidence? In other words, have you meant this god by any chance and realize he's lacking in some way? LOL

 

Hello Raoul, what you say amounts to asserting that, after all, there just might be a god.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

I actually feel that the universe is too complex and chaotic for a "designer" to have built. It's beyond amazing. The theist God is not big enough to explain the beauty and majesty of the universe.

 

Agree. Lucretius, the Roman Epicurean, said that when he contemplates the vast expanse of the universe, he is seized by a "divina voluptas ac horror," a "divine pleasure and shuddering." It's amazing to think of the extent of Being and to shudder in wonder at it.

[Ouroboros]

Once more - another opinion and nothing more because you say you 'feel' the universe is too complex. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion there but you offer some rather confusing explanations. To wit:

1. It's too complex so it couldn't have been designed? Just because you cannot understand every nuance regarding it doesn't mean someone else, much more intelligent than you, me, and a trillion other beings, couldn't have designed it.

2. You say the theistic God is not big enough to explain it. Based on what? What logic? What philosophy? What empirical evidence? In other words, have you meant this god by any chance and realize he's lacking in some way? LOL

Back at ya'. Reversed also applies. ROFL!!!

 

I'm still waiting for your mathematical proof that God exists.

[Akheia]

Ficino, it is an endemic mistake among Christians to mistake "the universe" for "this big oodle of stars and galaxies we look at right here and right now," just as they mistake the cosmic fluke of coincidences that allows life to cling to this little ball of rock to be an example of "fine-tuning." I refuse to believe that some genocidal young storm-god created all this stuff--all these stars, all these galaxies--but then just put life in this one teeny tiny corner. It seems terribly wasteful to me. And then to care what we do with our winkies in private--that's genuinely creepy. And then to hide every single hint of evidence of his existence from everybody and make it all look like it just happened naturally--that's genuinely homicidal and psychopathic, if one believes in a hell.

Agree.

 

I actually feel that the universe is too complex and chaotic for a "designer" to have built. It's beyond amazing. The theist God is not big enough to explain the beauty and majesty of the universe.

Once more - another opinion and nothing more because you say you 'feel' the universe is too complex. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion there but you offer some rather confusing explanations. To wit:

1. It's too complex so it couldn't have been designed? Just because you cannot understand every nuance regarding it doesn't mean someone else, much more intelligent than you, me, and a trillion other beings, couldn't have designed it.

2. You say the theistic God is not big enough to explain it. Based on what? What logic? What philosophy? What empirical evidence? In other words, have you meant this god by any chance and realize he's lacking in some way? LOL

 

You know, this is a perfect example of why our human capacity to see patterns everywhere--even where they don't especially exist--can bite us in the ass. All you're doing is moving the equation back one step. You're saying that complicated things require a designer, but by definition the designer can't be LESS complex than his creation. That would be logically absurd. So if complicated things need a designer, then who designed the designer? Where did this putative designer come from?

 

Eventually you discover it's turtles all the way down, friend. When do you stop and go "wait, wait, so who designed the designer's designer? And his? And HIS?"

 

As to your assertion about a theistic god in point 2, you do realize that Yahweh was a penny-ante member of a very limited-scope pantheon originally, right? I know you're not a Christian, but hang tight, I'm going somewhere with this. Yahweh had a wife, kids, and was the son of another god in his pantheon. He wasn't any different from, say, Mithras. The religion that evolved around him doesn't contain a single thing that Bronze Age Middle Eastern goat-herders would have found ground-breaking. No religion really did though. Every single time we've found some sort of answer to a physical question, it's been science that won that fight. Let me stress that: Religion has never, ever trumped science when it comes to questions about our physical world. The sun doesn't orbit the earth; earthquakes aren't really an indication of divine wrath; disease isn't a punishment for sin. But had we just stopped and wafted our palms skyward and said "Welp! That's it! God did it--nothing more to see here!" then where would we have been?

 

Oh. Yeah.

 

Right where the Catholic Church wanted us in the Dark Ages.

 

I'm not sure why you think that the question of our current universe's origin is the one time that religion might actually have some teeth, especially when Intelligent Design/Creationism has been soundly thumped on its nose a thousand times over by reputable scientists. If there were anything to it, I reckon we'd have figured SOMETHING out about it 30 years into its attempted takeover of our schools. But no... nothing.

[raoul]

Once more - another opinion and nothing more because you say you 'feel' the universe is too complex. Okay, you're entitled to your opinion there but you offer some rather confusing explanations. To wit:

1. It's too complex so it couldn't have been designed? Just because you cannot understand every nuance regarding it doesn't mean someone else, much more intelligent than you, me, and a trillion other beings, couldn't have designed it.

2. You say the theistic God is not big enough to explain it. Based on what? What logic? What philosophy? What empirical evidence? In other words, have you meant this god by any chance and realize he's lacking in some way? LOL

 

Hello Raoul, what you say amounts to asserting that, after all, there just might be a god.

 

Right and I think that is pretty reasonable to say in comparison to those who say there definitely is one or there is one who has specific plan for every human (this is the most absurd of all at least to me), etc.

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

Hello Raoul, what you say amounts to asserting that, after all, there just might be a god.

 

Right and I think that is pretty reasonable to say in comparison to those who say there definitely is one or there is one who has specific plan for every human (this is the most absurd of all at least to me), etc.

 

OK, fair enough, but then, what's the practical application? There just might be leprechauns, after all. No one can prove that they don't exist. This is the sort of thinking that pushed me from agnosticism to saying, well, I might as well just fish instead of cut bait and say I'm an atheist, since I'm living as though there is no god and as though we push on in the natural "universe" the best we can.

[raoul]

Hello Raoul, what you say amounts to asserting that, after all, there just might be a god.

 

Right and I think that is pretty reasonable to say in comparison to those who say there definitely is one or there is one who has specific plan for every human (this is the most absurd of all at least to me), etc.

 

OK, fair enough, but then, what's the practical application? There just might be leprechauns, after all. No one can prove that they don't exist. This is the sort of thinking that pushed me from agnosticism to saying, well, I might as well just fish instead of cut bait and say I'm an atheist, since I'm living as though there is no god and as though we push on in the natural "universe" the best we can.

 

1. I'm not qualified to talk about any practical application regarding the possibility of an intelligence because, quite honestly, I've often exclaimed "So what?" as in what good is it if it doesn't help me cope with something important in life.

2. Whether or not there are leprechauns, or Santa Claus (as many atheist LOVE to use), etc., - none of that has anything to do with discussions regarding singularity, first cause, et.al. - at least in my humble opinion. But to demonstrate how open minded I am, I am willing to concede the possibility of the existance of leprechauns if you are willing to concede the possibility of an intelligent designer behind the universe. By demonstrating my open mindedness I am also demonstrating a logical form of philosophical reasoning that suggests since I am not all knowing and have not visited every square inch of the planet and perhaps even the universe I am not qualified to say there are NOT leprechauns somewhere.

3. I admire your pracitical outlook regarding cutting the bait and simply trying to plod through this vale of tears. Don't we all?