God: Narcissist or low on self esteem?

X-Act said:
And your rhethotic question is exactly what every person would point out. I'd say that since God created us, He would be far more intelligent than any of its creations. It's like I created a car and the car is trying to understand how we human work. Can it ever do that? No.

I think that this is the fundamental reason why people divide neatly into two after coming to this realisation. They either accept humbly that they are nothing next to God, so they end up worshiping Him, or else dismiss God as something that doesn't exist.
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I don't think you understand what intelligence is (most people don't). As a matter of fact, intelligence is a compensation for a lack of power and a lack of knowledge. The more power you have, the less intelligence you actually need to do anything. Think about it for a second: logic is the science that allows you to infer truths from other truths. For example if you know A->B and A, you can infer that B. If you were omniscient, you would know A->B, A and B. Logic is completely unnecessary here because you already know everything. Why infer what you already know for sure?

Similarly, if you want to create human beings and you are omnipotent and eternal, all you need is the following program:

Code: 
sandbox = create_sandbox()
for every possible configuration of atoms:
    if configuration.lookslike("human.png"):
        sandbox.clear()
        sandbox.put_configuration(configuration)
        sandbox.intellectual_tasks.reset()
        while a year has not passed by:
            if sandbox.intellectual_tasks.are_solved():
                return configuration

All you need is to make up a "sandbox" with simple constructs, food and a bunch of intellectual tasks, which are simple games any human would be able to solve. Then you run the program. The program will try every single configuration of atoms. For each configuration, it will match up with "human.png" which is a drawing you would have made of a human. It can of course match up with other criteria. Then, you put it in the sandbox with the games reset. Then you wait one year and you check if the candidate managed to solve the games. If it did, then it is intelligent enough and you have your human. Of course, you would want to refine the program to make sure the configuration can procreate and can interact socially with other configurations etc.

But see my point: this program is extremely simple and with minor adjustments it would work. Since I was able to came up with that solution, it means that in order to create humanity, God needs not be smarter than I am. Of course, I cannot apply my technique but that is because my program is EXPTIME, I cannot just instantiate any configuration of atoms I wish to instantiate and thus the whole universe does not have enough resources to run my program. But God? God can do this shit. If I was God, I could do this shit. And that is why your argument fails spectacularly: if he has unlimited computational resources, God can "trial and error" his way into making up arbitrarily complex structures. As long as he knows what he wants as a final product, he can just ask gigantic clusters of absurdly powerful computers to find out how to do it. And that can be done by dumbly trying everything until it satisfies the contract. Since trial and error is the dumbest way to find something, but that it is sufficient for an omnipotent being, it ensues that God does not have to be very intelligent to make this universe (although he might be - but I really want to make it clear that it is unnecessary). Intelligence makes up for a lack of power. The less powerful you are, the smarter you need to be to do certain things. And the more powerful you are, the more brute force options you have access to that can give you what you want with no intelligence required. And why would you be intelligent just for the sake of being intelligent? To claim that God is intelligent because he made complex beings stems from wrongly applying a human conception of intelligence in a situation where it does not apply at all. So... who is anthropomorphizing there?

As for your car example, I'm sorry but it is a very dumb example. We have successfully made machines that are:
* Stronger than us
* Faster than us
* More precise than us
* Calculate faster than us
* Automatically solve some problems better than us

We're making machines that best us in progressively harder tasks. They'll catch up completely eventually. And I already talked about the trial and error program which a human can write and if given enough time would definitely find something that is smarter than its creator.

I find it ironic that Christians put so much emphasis on the fact God cannot be understood in human terms, yet they are the ones who do it systemically.
 
here's something to chew on:

If we all "evolved", then why is it that pretty much every animal follows the same basic structure, regardless of where on the planet they are found? Sure, there is some diversity, depending on the environment, but all mammals have two lungs, muscles, bones, fur, eyes, mouth, nose. Same skeletal structure, with slight variations. And don't even try to say "that's because it's the most efficient design" because it is scientifically proven that animals are not at all efficient. Your appendages actually have a horribly low mechanical advantage, and your body produces tons of waste. You also don't extract all the oxygen from the air you breathe.

If we all evolved from single celled organisms, wouldn't it be logical for every animal to be highly overspecialized, to the point where they could only fulfill one purpose, albeit very well? And considering the diversity of the ecosystems around the world, it would also make sense that there would be absolutely no similarities between the animals found in different areas.


So basically, it's not a question of whether God exists or not, it's more like ...how could someone NOT have built all these things?



I also challenge you to take all the parts of a watch, put them in a closed room and set off an explosive charge, anywhere in the room. No matter how many times you do it, you will never assemble the watch. Living things are even more sophisticated. Yeah, like a big bang could have created life ?_?

EDIT: why do those taking up the "religious" point of view in these arguments get flamed... :/
 
Skiddle: The reason why tetrapods follow the same basic plan is exactly because they evolved from a common ancestor and you are limited by the adaptations of your predecessor as a rule. Finding imperfections in nature is direct evidence for evolution- a perfect being would make perfect creations.

Animals CAN become highly overspecialized, but they can also be generalists. It's not hard to adapt for a wide variety of foodsources, for example. Evolution =/= specializing.

Your ideas are not only unfounded and completely flawed from a scientific standpoint.

Not to mention, with your big bang comment, that given enough trials anything is possible. You obviously have zero idea about chemical evolution and the repeatable experiments done to demonstrate that yes, life can arise from nothing. What the fuck do you call a virus? An intermediate between life and non-life. Quite literally, it is missing 3/10 of the requirements for life.

Now, don't talk about evolution here again or I'll shiv you with my degree once more.


Sorry, arti, I did mean X-act. As for what X-act actually did say, I just realized what a tremendous cop out it is to say "oh you cannot define it" in a thread attempting to define God in a way that people can understand.

Brain, I fucking love you now.
 
Articuno64 said:
The reason there isn't a better word for 'tick' here is that there isn't actually any effect to describe that needs a word or definition.
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Posting on the internet is a pointless endeavor unnecessary to survival. The very fact we are having an abstract discussion about non-survival related matters is indicative that humanity yearns for more than the lowest needs. Humanity, in other words, has instincts that revolve around existence and not just survival.

Nothing, because we aren't.
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Why have laws then? If we are to follow the rules of the animal kingdom, then outlawing murder is idiotic. Human beings are hardwired with a sense of right and wrong, and are the only being capable of distinguishing between the two. There is no way that I could compel you to do something just be altering your brain chemistry in some arcane way. Humans have a behavior filter that is capable of resisting physical limitations.

I don't see why some mystical essence of self (aka soul) is a prerequisite to having "abstract" thoughts. I understand that the complexity of ourselves as organisms (especially our brains, maybe) is very impressive to us, but observing our own complexity and inferring that there must be some deeper, magical core that is impossible for us to really understand (aka soul) is kinda like what would happen if people from thousands of years ago saw my laptop and thought it was magical. For them to try to explain how the laptop works would be silly, and it would result in multiple, inconsistent explanations floating around. These people from the past would be most correct to assume that the laptop is actually fully understandable, but to understand it requires much more knowledge that they don't have.
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The soul is not "magical," it is the essence of who you are. It is the reason why identical twins share exact DNA and yet have different friends, interests, etc. Genetic programing is demonstrably not the be-all end-all of humanity. Identical brain chemistry does not produce identical results, in other words. Choice is involved, and choice is the essence of free will.


Brain said:
As for your car example, I'm sorry but it is a very dumb example. We have successfully made machines that are:
* Stronger than us
* Faster than us
* More precise than us
* Calculate faster than us
* Automatically solve some problems better than us
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And these machines all require:

Human operators and maintenance.

Cars are faster than us.

When we are driving them. Otherwise they are a glorified rock.

Levers are stronger than us.

And utterly inanimate and useless without us.

Medical tools are more precise than us.

But require monitoring by humans or else they cause immense damage or give errant readings.

Calculators and Computers require humans to set their parameters.

Finally:

Human Beings can accomplish all of these tasks given enough time. Machines are limited to one (or a set of) pre-programmed task(s). Are incapable of independent thought, and cannot self-sustain. Machines are inferior to their masters because they rely on their masters to keep them in good condition.

Your folly is that you believe math problems and logic puzzles are the only things involved in being human. No computer program could return a human being, because ultimately all it is is data that behaves in a pre-programmed way. It can simulate human activity, but at the end of the day it is a clever combination of 0s and 1s. It merely proves you can simulate human behavior, not create it on a machine.
 
skiddle said:
If we all "evolved", then why is it that pretty much every animal follows the same basic structure, regardless of where on the planet they are found? Sure, there is some diversity, depending on the environment, but all mammals have two lungs, muscles, bones, fur, eyes, mouth, nose. Same skeletal structure, with slight variations.
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Pangea_animation_03.gif


skiddle said:
And don't even try to say "that's because it's the most efficient design" because it is scientifically proven that animals are not at all efficient. Your appendages actually have a horribly low mechanical advantage, and your body produces tons of waste. You also don't extract all the oxygen from the air you breathe.
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You predicted an opposing argument that no one would even try to make. Evolution does not yield the most efficient design, it just yields designs which are "good enough" to survive in their environments.

skiddle said:
If we all evolved from single celled organisms, wouldn't it be logical for every animal to be highly overspecialized, to the point where they could only fulfill one purpose, albeit very well?
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First of all, each of our different cell types is pretty specialized as far as I understand (I'm no biologist). Second of all, why is that logical?

skiddle said:
And considering the diversity of the ecosystems around the world, it would also make sense that there would be absolutely no similarities between the animals found in different areas.
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Similarities exist because of common ancestors.

skiddle said:
So basically, it's not a question of whether God exists or not, it's more like ...how could someone NOT have built all these things?
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Do you know what a genetic mutation is? A single mutation may result in a change in behaviour or appearance, albeit usually a small one, and sometimes no change results at all. Most of these changes are detrimental to an organism's survival, but some result in positive changes that allow an organism to continue on. A bacterium is not going to transform into a human being in a day, but enough mutations over millions of years can do the job. At some point, an organism is strong enough that it can survive with or without certain mutations, and this is where different species with common ancestors branch away from each other. The end result won't be perfect, but it will have the means to survive in its environment.

You need to think beyond the immediate time that we live in and comprehend the wildly different magnitude of the time scale that is involved when we talk about millions of years.

skiddle said:
I also challenge you to take all the parts of a watch, put them in a closed room and set off an explosive charge, anywhere in the room. No matter how many times you do it, you will never assemble the watch. Living things are even more sophisticated. Yeah, like a big bang could have created life ?_?
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No one said a complex organism ever popped out of the air magically from a bang, so you've probably misunderstood the idea. Thanks for having an attitude about it, though.

skiddle said:
EDIT: why do those taking up the "religious" point of view in these arguments get flamed... :/
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People are flamed just as often on either side of the argument.

Deck Knight said:
Posting on the internet is a pointless endeavor unnecessary to survival. The very fact we are having an abstract discussion about non-survival related matters is indicative that humanity yearns for more than the lowest needs. Humanity, in other words, has instincts that revolve around existence and not just survival.
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So human needs beyond survival are what you're calling 'tick'? No one said that an organism is only trying to survive. The fact of the matter is that the ones that survive are the ones that exist tomorrow. Also, the very concept of "trying to do something" is just an abstraction of human complexity, it is not an issue separate from the organism.

Deck Knight said:
Why have laws then? If we are to follow the rules of the animal kingdom, then outlawing murder is idiotic. Human beings are hardwired with a sense of right and wrong, and are the only being capable of distinguishing between the two. There is no way that I could compel you to do something just be altering your brain chemistry in some arcane way. Humans have a behavior filter that is capable of resisting physical limitations.
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We outlaw murder for our own peace of mind. Animals fear death just as much as we do, but the fact that we are the most advanced animal on Earth means we can write about it in books of laws. There is nothing "wrong" about murder other than the fact that we feel safer when there is less of it.

You couldn't compel me to do something by altering my brain chemistry? What are drugs? Maybe we don't have a level of control fine grained enough to force somebody to do something without a doubt, but that is merely a limitation of our drug technology.


Deck Knight said:
The soul is not "magical," it is the essence of who you are. It is the reason why identical twins share exact DNA and yet have different friends, interests, etc. Genetic programing is demonstrably not the be-all end-all of humanity. Identical brain chemistry does not produce identical results, in other words. Choice is involved, and choice is the essence of free will.
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The soul is magical if you cannot define it in terms of something concrete. What is an essence? Identical twins branch when they have different experiences starting right from birth. No one said that genes determine everything we do. My behaviour is a result of my genes and my experiences.

Choice is another abstraction of the complexity of the human mind. It's made up of complex chemical processes. If you rewound time and replayed it, the exact same things would happen. At a high level it seems as though you are deciding things on the spot, but everything is a direct consequence of something else. The fact that we can't predict it is only a testament to its complexity.

Deck Knight said:
Your folly is that you believe math problems and logic puzzles are the only things involved in being human. No computer program could return a human being, because ultimately all it is is data that behaves in a pre-programmed way. It can simulate human activity, but at the end of the day it is a clever combination of 0s and 1s. It merely proves you can simulate human behavior, not create it on a machine.
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You are thinking in terms of our modern day computer technology. At the most fundamental level, genetic sequences can be produced through trial and error, and if we had the technology to test them (creation of cells with custom DNA) and the time (millions of years?), we would eventually see some peculiar things, maybe even humans. If you have these organisms in a wild, uncontrolled environment, you may even eventually see the result of those that had the means not to die.
 
A thought actually pertaining to the topic's original question just occurred to me. I think most of us would agree morals are subjective, correct? If God is superior to us (and everything else in the universe) in every possible way, he is also in the place to define actions and thoughts as either "good" or "evil". He can then uphold the idea that everything he does is "good", therefore making him perfect regardless of what we humans believe. Who, then, are we to call him imperfect things such as narcissistic or low on self esteem? He is perfect because he says he is. This whole idea is somewhat disheartening to many people, but it is essentially why Christians, myself included, believe that God is perfect.
 
Deck Knight said:
Posting on the internet is a pointless endeavor unnecessary to survival. The very fact we are having an abstract discussion about non-survival related matters is indicative that humanity yearns for more than the lowest needs. Humanity, in other words, has instincts that revolve around existence and not just survival.
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Evolution is perfectly capable of producing biological machines with such "instincts", so I fail to see your point.

Why have laws then? If we are to follow the rules of the animal kingdom, then outlawing murder is idiotic.
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The "rules" of animal kingdom do not exist per se, but in the extent that they do, they are not that different from our own. Animals don't gratuitously kill each others any more than we do. We simply formalized that instinct.

Human beings are hardwired with a sense of right and wrong, and are the only being capable of distinguishing between the two. There is no way that I could compel you to do something just be altering your brain chemistry in some arcane way. Humans have a behavior filter that is capable of resisting physical limitations.
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Your statement is so absurd, obviously false and widely discredited that I don't know if I should even bother to correct it. But here goes:

Of course there are ways that you could compel me to do something just by altering my brain chemistry. And these ways are not even arcane. Drugs and medication can change someone's behavior, for example, making him or her violent or apathetic. And of course there is prefrontal lobotomy, which can change someone's personality completely, apparently by cutting links between emotions and intellect. People who have been subject to these experiments have said that they felt like part of their soul was lacking (or were described as such by others):

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2007/07/inventing_the_lobotomy.php

The prefrontal cortex is the place where the sense of morality is developed, and it's been shown in experiments. Basically, by cutting a small part of the human brain, you can actually remove the subject's sense of right and wrong.

What do you have to say about that?

The soul is not "magical," it is the essence of who you are. It is the reason why identical twins share exact DNA and yet have different friends, interests, etc. Genetic programing is demonstrably not the be-all end-all of humanity. Identical brain chemistry does not produce identical results, in other words. Choice is involved, and choice is the essence of free will.
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Have you even considered that identical twins were different because they are not in an identical environment? Have you considered that being aware of each other, random circumstances, events that happend to a twin rather than to the other, etc. could lead to "symmetry-breaking" between them and to a differentiation of their friends and interests? I could easily have gone in math or physics and made different friends because of random circumstance, thereby decreasing or increasing my exposure to various things. I could have ended up in hundreds of very different situations, regardless of my genetic makeup, just because of small changes in my environment. So why is it surprising that identical twins have different interests and different friends? I would say it's a fucking obvious thing to happen.

Cars are faster than us.

When we are driving them. Otherwise they are a glorified rock.
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I believe that cars will drive themselves within the next decade. Of course, you'll say that they still take orders as to where to go. But so does a chauffeur. To me it just proves that machines can do more and more things.

Medical tools are more precise than us.

But require monitoring by humans or else they cause immense damage or give errant readings.
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Oh? And how long do you think it will take for these issues to be fixed?

Calculators and Computers require humans to set their parameters.
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Today, computers automatically set up things that humans had to configure manually before. Today, compilers can optimize code much better than the great majority of humans. Today, we have algorithms that can produce programs that recognize handwriting, programs that classify shapes in images, etc. better than programs hand-written by humans (please re-read that last sentence at least 10 times - I am talking about a program that makes programs). Can't you see? Machines tend to do more. Humans tend to do less. To me at least it seems clear that eventually machines will be able to do everything we can do and then they will surpass us.

I can see you answer: "Oh but they were made by humans!!!". But that is not even the point of this discussion. My point is that creatures can be smarter than their creators. I don't give a shit who made them, it is another argument completely.

Human Beings can accomplish all of these tasks given enough time.
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Something that can accomplish a task in 10 minutes is definitely smarter than something that can accomplish a task in 20 minutes. In many cases, humans will be exponentially slower than machines to solve a given task, short of making these machines.

Machines are limited to one (or a set of) pre-programmed task(s). Are incapable of independent thought, and cannot self-sustain. Machines are inferior to their masters because they rely on their masters to keep them in good condition.
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Completely unsubstantiated statement. There is no logical reason we cannot make machines that can self-sustain. There is no logical reason we cannot make machines capable of independent thought - making a machine which strives to survive in a controlled environment would typically result in that. It is also false that machines have to be "pre-programmed" to do tasks. There are whole fields of computer science and robotics dedicated to making machines that adapt to external stimuli, and that is exactly what human brains do.

Your folly is that you believe math problems and logic puzzles are the only things involved in being human. No computer program could return a human being, because ultimately all it is is data that behaves in a pre-programmed way. It can simulate human activity, but at the end of the day it is a clever combination of 0s and 1s. It merely proves you can simulate human behavior, not create it on a machine.
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Can we at least agree that we could make a machine which reproduces the structure and behavior of human brains? Then it comes back to arguing whether a soul exists or not...


Headpunch said:
A thought actually pertaining to the topic's original question just occurred to me. I think most of us would agree morals are subjective, correct? If God is superior to us (and everything else in the universe) in every possible way, he is also in the place to define actions and thoughts as either "good" or "evil". He can then uphold the idea that everything he does is "good", therefore making him perfect regardless of what we humans believe. Who, then, are we to call him imperfect things such as narcissistic or low on self esteem? He is perfect because he says he is. This whole idea is somewhat disheartening to many people, but it is essentially why Christians, myself included, believe that God is perfect.
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You know, what puzzles me with your statement is why you stick to your beliefs. Once I had realized this, I would immediately throw my religion out of the window, because it would cease talking about things I can relate to and in the end it's just feel-good rubbish. I don't know if you realize it, but what you are saying is that "good", "evil" and "perfect" are completely meaningless terms. Since I would like to think that you have a subjective notion of "good", it would make sense for you to follow that subjective notion rather than God's which offers no guarantee of a subjective benefit. If God had defined murder to be "good", you would say fuck this shit and you would quit the religion, right? God's "goodness" and "perfection" wouldn't mean anything positive to you, in fact you would come to hate them. What God says doesn't matter - you work for your own subjective good and you only fool yourself into following religion because what God advertises as "good" is compatible with what you think. Personally I don't think there is anything rational or constructive in that attitude.
 
Articuno64 said:
c
So human needs beyond survival are what you're calling 'tick'? No one said that an organism is only trying to survive. The fact of the matter is that the ones that survive are the ones that exist tomorrow. Also, the very concept of "trying to do something" is just an abstraction of human complexity, it is not an issue separate from the organism.
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It has nothing to do with need but desire. Humans often choose what they desire. Your untestable, unproven theory of temporal constancy aside. You believe with the same amount of faith that I do that all of our actions in live are predetermined by chemical sequences.

If you believe choice is an illusion you are essentially arguing predetermination. If predetermination is the case then laws, justice, good and evil are rendered moot because everyone is slave to the inanimate processes of their brain. Crimes become unpunishable, so following your model to its logical, if a man kills your entire family and sets fire to your house, he cannot be prosecuted because if you were to rewind time, he would in every instance murder your family and set fire to your house.


We outlaw murder for our own peace of mind. Animals fear death just as much as we do, but the fact that we are the most advanced animal on Earth means we can write about it in books of laws. There is nothing "wrong" about murder other than the fact that we feel safer when there is less of it.
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I do not fear death. Death is the natural ending of life. It is inevitable and unstoppable. Your entire worldview is conquered by inevitability and death. You cannot form a society based on hard predetermination becuase in the end you concede free will and become a slave to fate.

You couldn't compel me to do something by altering my brain chemistry? What are drugs? Maybe we don't have a level of control fine grained enough to force somebody to do something without a doubt, but that is merely a limitation of our drug technology.
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For some people, looking beyond science is impossible. Human beings have a will and intellect. That will opposes all forces, external or internal that seek to cause harm, and can well memories to be pulled later for revenge. There is a point where "unpredictability" turns into free will. To believe we are governed by the inanimate is to concede your humanity.

There will always be someone out there who believes if they just do enough tinkering in a lab they will be able to prove human beings are merely biomechanical automatons who can be programmed by chemical signals. People who think human beings are just organic machines. These people are, in addition to being wrong, usually the worst sort of monster imaginable.

The soul is magical if you cannot define it in terms of something concrete. What is an essence? Identical twins branch when they have different experiences starting right from birth. No one said that genes determine everything we do. My behaviour is a result of my genes and my experiences.
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Are your experiences predetermined? If you rewind time to your birth, will you go through exactly the same sequences of events through your entire life? You have no way of knowing because it is impossible to answer because it is impossible to do. You merely have an unproven, untested theory for how you want the world to be: Simple, concrete, explainable in the most mundane and determined terms. The logical conclusion of your world, if true, is that law and order are simply formalities. There is no justice in a world of predetermination.

Choice is another abstraction of the complexity of the human mind. It's made up of complex chemical processes. If you rewound time and replayed it, the exact same things would happen. At a high level it seems as though you are deciding things on the spot, but everything is a direct consequence of something else. The fact that we can't predict it is only a testament to its complexity.
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As I said, interesting theory, but untestable and unprovable.


You are thinking in terms of our modern day computer technology. At the most fundamental level, genetic sequences can be produced through trial and error, and if we had the technology to test them (creation of cells with custom DNA) and the time (millions of years?), we would eventually see some peculiar things, maybe even humans. If you have these organisms in a wild, uncontrolled environment, you may even eventually see the result of those that had the means not to die.
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There is only one species on planet earth even capable of performing these tasks. Genetics are too complex for humanity to handle, and it is arrogant and irresponsible to suggest otherwise. Tinkering with humanity like it is a toy that only needs more study is the kind of thinking that produces true monstrosities. The difference between a mad scientist and a murderer is the murderer recognizes he is spilling blood and doesn't care, the mad scientist questions the intrinsic value of humanity and deems himself God over it.

The quest for a "theory of everything" is a fools game. You have to be a programmer to think of everything in terms of machines. There are some things that are simply beyond human limitations, but fools still seek to discover them because they want the world to be a place where every single thing is explainable in human terms. They do not have the restraint to know there are some things better left unknown and some things that are patently unknowable.

They will eternally seek vindication for their fixation on predetermination. And they will never find it. Sad, really.

Brain said:
The prefrontal cortex is the place where the sense of morality is developed, and it's been shown in experiments. Basically, by cutting a small part of the human brain, you can actually remove the subject's sense of right and wrong.

What do you have to say about that?
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You can remove an engine from a car, and I daresay that because it is missing a key component it will not be faster than humans anymore. Wonderful how scientists cannot distinguish between human beings and machines anymore.
 
Know what? I used to go to church, and yeah it's me again.

It sucked. It was boring. I always fell asleep. When I prayed, I heard nothing. I'd feel like an ignorant idiot not insulting the whole idea of religion and going along with it!

I decided hell couldn't be much worse if they're was such a place, so I quit.

Plus, isn't it arrogant for religious people themselves to believe their god exists and all other gods are bullshit lies when nobody can really see their god? We're all being just as arrogant here, aren't we?
 
To Deck Knight: there's a ton wrong with that, but I've got work to do so I'll probably respond in a couple days. Hopefully the discussion doesn't go too far or I'll have to make a mammoth post.
 
B-rock said:
Know what? I used to go to church, and yeah it's me again.

It sucked. It was boring. I always fell asleep. When I prayed, I heard nothing. I'd feel like an ignorant idiot not insulting the whole idea of religion and going along with it!

I decided hell couldn't be much worse if they're was such a place, so I quit.

Plus, isn't it arrogant for religious people themselves to believe their god exists and all other gods are bullshit lies when nobody can really see their god? We're all being just as arrogant here, aren't we?
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No, because some of us actually read our theology and know that you don't go to church for your own sake. Every prayer you have ever made has been answered, but not in the way you want.

You quit because you didn't get your way in the manner you desired. You weren't there for the right reasons. You were seeking for yourself and not for God.

And as a matter of principle: If you have a belief system, then yes it generally precludes all others. That is a matter of fact, not arrogance. It becomes arrogance when you assert you have proof of something rather than faith in it.
 
what evidence do you have that your prayers have been answered? I seem to recall someone hearing God reply being burned at the stake or nailed to a cross...

If you don't go to church for your own sake, Deck Knight, why do you go? Is it for God's sake? Because he needs to be worshiped? I'm not understanding your logic here given that everyone seems to be claiming that god doesn't need your worship to be happy or fulfilled. Something isn't adding up.
 
You know, what puzzles me with your statement is why you stick to your beliefs. Once I had realized this, I would immediately throw my religion out of the window, because it would cease talking about things I can relate to and in the end it's just feel-good rubbish. I don't know if you realize it, but what you are saying is that "good", "evil" and "perfect" are completely meaningless terms. Since I would like to think that you have a subjective notion of "good", it would make sense for you to follow that subjective notion rather than God's which offers no guarantee of a subjective benefit. If God had defined to be "good", you would say this and you would quit the religion, right? God's "goodness" and "perfection" wouldn't mean anything positive to you, in fact you would come to them. What God says doesn't matter - you work for your own subjective good and you only fool yourself into following religion because what God advertises as "good" is compatible with what you think. Personally I don't think there is anything rational or constructive in that attitude.
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Good job, Brain. You figured it out. I am, in fact, saying that "good", "evil", and "perfect" are essentially meaningless. If God defined killing as "good", what would make me leave my religion? After all, what I am doing is "perfect" by God's standards, and there certainly isn't a higher set. In case you didn't realize this, I am not a Christian because it is "compatible" with my human nature. It's usually contrary to my human nature, in fact. The whole premise is chilling, I understand, but the problem with your style of arguing is that you presume to understand my thought patterns.
 
A small question directed at atheists; doesn't it take faith to be an atheist? It seems that faith is derided by most atheists, but it takes faith to believe that all that is real can be fully perceived and known by humans. Unless you acknowledge that there could be some higher spiritual reality, I don't see how it can't be faith to be assured in oneself without proof. I'm not trying to insult atheists, I just wanna see what their take on this would be.

EDIT: There is not much evidence prayer works, especially because prayers aren't always answered, which I'd attribute to the fact that God can't run our lives for us. It's something that Jesus did, and we have faith that God will listen to us just like he listened to Jesus. Sometimes prayer isn't about praising God, it's about having someone that will listen and that loves us no matter what we do wrong.
 
Mormoopid said:
what evidence do you have that your prayers have been answered? I seem to recall someone hearing God reply being burned at the stake or nailed to a cross...
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Aye. And he rose from the dead 3 days later. Because he has power over death. Prayers being answered is a matter of the theology. Whenever you send an intention or petition towards God he hears it. He may not answer in the way you expect or even a way you can understand.

If you don't go to church for your own sake, Deck Knight, why do you go? Is it for God's sake? Because he needs to be worshiped? I'm not understanding your logic here given that everyone seems to be claiming that god doesn't need your worship to be happy or fulfilled. Something isn't adding up.
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There are Two Great Commandments laid out in Catholic theology, straight from Jesus himself: Love God with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. All other commandments are an extension of these.

In the Old Testament, a Commandment was laid down to keep holy the Sabbath Day. i.e. go to Church. Church exposes you to the teachings of the faith and Communion with God through the Eucharist. God is a being greater than any other and thus deserving of worship, but again he does not require it.

If I were to give a (notably inadequate) comparison, do you go over to your best friend's house because he is a narcissist who demands your presence and tribute, or do you go over there because he gives you council and helps you with your troubles? Going to Church helps form a relationship with God, it exposes you to the scriptures of the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Gospel to inform your thinking.

On a further matter that I have probably slipped away from in favor of psuedo-science and metaphysics:

Religion is primarily teaching on the matter of morality. It is teachings that apply to your relationship with yourself and other human beings. It centers you around the intangibles: truth, justice, mercy, peace, love, charity. Christianity anchors truth in God, a being who transcends death and humanity and enables justice that goes beyond the temporal.

Whitey Bulger for example may never pay for him crimes on earth, but if he does not repent of his sins then he has seperated himself from God and will face the ultimate punishment after his inevitable death. Hell is not a place but a state of being for the soul, a state that is completely absent and devoid of God's love. Free will is central to this because in order to be in hell you must reject God throughout your life. In other word's it is your decisions, not the wrath or jealousy of an angry God that seals the fate of your soul.

Ideas have an effect on the human mind. The more you come to believe something the more it effects your thinking and outlook. If you fill your mind with the idea that justice is ultimately universal and that you should treat others with kindness and charity, you will tend to be more helpful to society.

Some of course may choose to mock you for believing in such transcendent absolutes, but they have their own basis of morality in their own mind, and it often has fewer logical consistency checks. The body is a vessel for the soul. If you change fundamental components of the body, you can change behavior but you will not destroy the soul.
 
skiddle said:
hIf we all "evolved", then why is it that pretty much every animal follows the same basic structure, regardless of where on the planet they are found?
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Simple answer: they don't.
skiddle said:
Sure, there is some diversity, depending on the environment, but all mammals have two lungs, muscles, bones, fur, eyes, mouth, nose.
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This is tautology. You are basically saying "mammals have characteristics of mammals". I fail to see how this proves anything.

skiddle said:
Same skeletal structure, with slight variations.
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"Slight variations" imply that it is not always the same. You are contradicting yourself.

skiddle said:
And don't even try to say "that's because it's the most efficient design" because it is scientifically proven that animals are not at all efficient. Your appendages actually have a horribly low mechanical advantage, and your body produces tons of waste. You also don't extract all the oxygen from the air you breathe.
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This seems to counter the belief that an omnipotent, omniscient, perfect god created everything.

skiddle said:
If we all evolved from single celled organisms, wouldn't it be logical for every animal to be highly overspecialized, to the point where they could only fulfill one purpose, albeit very well?
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No.

skiddle said:
And considering the diversity of the ecosystems around the world, it would also make sense that there would be absolutely no similarities between the animals found in different areas.
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Plate tectonics. Migration.

skiddle said:
So basically, it's not a question of whether God exists or not, it's more like ...how could someone NOT have built all these things?
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Yes, it is still a question of whether God exists or not.

skiddle said:
I also challenge you to take all the parts of a watch, put them in a closed room and set off an explosive charge, anywhere in the room. No matter how many times you do it, you will never assemble the watch. Living things are even more sophisticated. Yeah, like a big bang could have created life ?_?
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The big bang did not create life. The big bang is a theory of physics describing the rapid expansion of space-time approximately 13.7 billion years ago. Abiogenesis is a theory of chemistry describing how life arose. Evolution describes only the changes that take place once life exists and has abundant evidence.

I recommend you consult a biology textbook. Failing that, the following links are helpful:

Evidence for evolution:
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-mustread.html

If you don't feel like reading:
http://www.youtube.com/user/DonExodus2
http://www.youtube.com/user/ExtantDodo
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=AC3481305829426D
 
Deck Knight: So what you're trying to say is that you have a personal relationship and like spending time with someone/thing that you've never seen, heard or been given any imperical evidence of its actual existence? People sometimes get institutionalized if they believe in things like that that aren't named "God". Just drawing a parallel, I'm not actually saying it's the same.

Goodbar: It takes no faith to be an atheist. I don't personally believe or have faith in anything. I observe the world around me and use these observations to make various interpretations about my world. Observation doesn't take faith at all because you can observe it (obviously). Faith is belief without evidence, I require evidence before I pass judgement on things. Therefore, no faith needed.

To expand a little bit with the evolution theme I'm trying to steer away from, I don't believe in evolution. Evolution is something that just fucking happens- it doesn't need your permission or faith to happen. Whereas it isarguable that your god would cease to 'exist' if nobody believed in it, assuming that it is of course fictitious like I would strongly suggest.

Edit: I'm pretty pleased to see skiddle getting put in his place repeatedly for retardedly invoking evolution in this thread.
 
But it takes faith to reject God when you have no proof he doesn't exist. So ok, you'd probably tell me it takes faith to not believe in a flying spaghetti monster, but there's no evidence it ever existed in the first place, there is evidence that God exists, like for example I pointed out earlier that the Jesus talked about in the scriptures existed at least, according to historical evidence. It takes faith to accept or reject the Big Bang Theory as truth, because it is not proven, even though there is evidence, in the loose denotation of the word (and I'm not implying anything about my stance on it). Maybe a better way of asserting my point is saying you have faith that all that is real is within humans' limitations of perception.
 
Mr_Goodbar said:
But it takes faith to reject God when you have no proof he doesn't exist. So ok, you'd probably tell me it takes faith to not believe in a flying spaghetti monster, but there's no evidence it ever existed in the first place, there is evidence that God exists, like for example I pointed out earlier that the Jesus talked about in the scriptures existed at least, according to historical evidence.
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That a man named Jesus Christ existed is no evidence for a God of any type. Mohammed existed; is this evidence that he was actually writing the words of Allah in the Qur'an?

Mr_Goodbar said:
It takes faith to accept or reject the Big Bang Theory as truth, because it is not proven, even though there is evidence, in the loose denotation of the word (and I'm not implying anything about my stance on it). Maybe a better way of asserting my point is saying you have faith that all that is real is within humans' limitations of perception.
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Faith is belief without evidence. The Big Bang theory is backed up by substantial scientific evidence. That is not, of course, to suggest that one should accept it a priori and unquestioningly, however, the evidence for its validity far outweighs any evidence (of which there is little, if any) for its invalidity. I myself am a theological noncognitivist; that is, I feel religion is cognitively meaningless as it is not verifiable and is quite usually incoherent. Michael Martin's excellent (though quite dense) book Atheism: A Philosophical Justification is a good summary of this perspective and is in fact the book that led to my rejecting Christianity althogether.
 
Quick question Mormoopid, do you believe in numbers? I'm not sure they can be empirically observed, they're purely abstract, so how do you justify their existence?
 
No, faith is belief without proof, according to the dictionary. I'll elaborate: the Jesus described in the Bible is pretty accurate to what historians have said about him, besides the "miracles" and resurrection. The shroud of Turin is also physical evidence of Jesus' resurrection. To say that I'm believing in some obscure idea is really an insult to my intelligence. I'm not trying to discredit your beliefs with my assertion, I'm mainly trying to understand your position.
 
ok im really not trying to be an ass-kisser here but i thoroughly love every single post of brain's that i've seen and i really wish he would post more
 
Mr_Goodbar said:
No, faith is belief without proof, according to the dictionary. I'll elaborate: the Jesus described in the Bible is pretty accurate to what historians have said about him, besides the "miracles" and resurrection.
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You mean besides the qualities that make him anything other than a man. The qualities that through his existence and possession of those qualities would justify belief in a God. At any rate, the topic of historical Jesus is very broad, and I don't particularly see its applicability here.

Mr_Goodbar said:
The shroud of Turin is also physical evidence of Jesus' resurrection.
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This is absolutely laughable. Even if I were to concede (which I do not) that the Shroud was not a forgery and actually did belong to Jesus of Nazareth, this still is not proof of his divinity or resurrection.

Mr_Goodbar said:
To say that I'm believing in some obscure idea is really an insult to my intelligence.
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Believing that Jesus Christ existed is not believing an obscure idea; believing in God, however, is.

Mr_Goodbar said:
I'm not trying to discredit your beliefs with my assertion, I'm mainly trying to understand your position.
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For all intents and purposes (and because I do not feel like expanding upon this myself), this is the best description of my position that I can find: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_martin/meaningless.html
 
Deck Knight said:
It has nothing to do with need but desire. Humans often choose what they desire. Your untestable, unproven theory of temporal constancy aside. You believe with the same amount of faith that I do that all of our actions in live are predetermined by chemical sequences.
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No, actually, there are heaps of evidence for what we believe.

If you believe choice is an illusion you are essentially arguing predetermination. If predetermination is the case then laws, justice, good and evil are rendered moot because everyone is slave to the inanimate processes of their brain. Crimes become unpunishable, so following your model to its logical, if a man kills your entire family and sets fire to your house, he cannot be prosecuted because if you were to rewind time, he would in every instance murder your family and set fire to your house.
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Non sequitur. I see two spectacular failures in your reasoning:

1) The "inanimate processes" that we are are configured in such a way that they care about their survival. Therefore, the system they will come up with will include laws, justice, good and evil. You're trying to say that there is no "reason" to have these things and I have to admit I'm dumbfounded. "Inanimate processes" don't need fucking reasons, they do what they do and that's all there is to it. Laws, justice, good and evil will occur because that is an obvious consequence of the processes we are looking at. Your last example is particularly incomprehensible. Justice isn't really about responsibility, it is about regulating the system to reduce the amount of crimes. We prosecute "inanimate processes" which correspond to a well-defined idea of malfunction. In other words, we prosecute the man and we put him in prison because he is fucking defective. Nothing else matters and have ever mattered.

2) You're saying that if we were mere biological machines, there would be no reason to have laws, justice, good or evil. I conclusively debunked this in 1). But despite this, what strikes me is that in order for this to happen, the machines would need to be aware that they are machines and furthermore that it is all pointless. Your argument is thus completely inapplicable to machines that believe they have a soul. And that's precisely what we have here :) In other words, you like to argue that a godless society is terrible and would not work... yet this has absolutely no bearing on what is or isn't actually the case. It remains perfectly possible (and even probable) that we need to believe in God but in fact there is no God and we're just a bunch of foolish machines.

But really, your statement is a non sequitur festival.

Are your experiences predetermined? If you rewind time to your birth, will you go through exactly the same sequences of events through your entire life? You have no way of knowing because it is impossible to answer because it is impossible to do. You merely have an unproven, untested theory for how you want the world to be: Simple, concrete, explainable in the most mundane and determined terms. The logical conclusion of your world, if true, is that law and order are simply formalities. There is no justice in a world of predetermination.
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Non sequitur again... law and order have absolutely nothing to do with whether the world is predetermined or not. Think pragmatically - a predetermined system which is "programmed" for survival would want to get rid of any elements that threaten the equilibrium. Hence, law and order. That's all there is to it. What is so hard to understand about that?

Even without predetermination, the world isn't any more interesting. There are two types of basic processes: determined processes and random processes. Any process ever is a combination of determinism and randomness. This covers all possible situations. All of them, ever. There simply is no hole left to peg and that is a mathematical fact.

There is only one species on planet earth even capable of performing these tasks. Genetics are too complex for humanity to handle, and it is arrogant and irresponsible to suggest otherwise. Tinkering with humanity like it is a toy that only needs more study is the kind of thinking that produces true monstrosities. The difference between a mad scientist and a murderer is the murderer recognizes he is spilling blood and doesn't care, the mad scientist questions the intrinsic value of humanity and deems himself God over it.
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I think what you are afraid most is that humanity will indeed understand genetics well enough to prove you wrong on all counts once and for all. My "faith" that we will come to that point is reasonable extrapolation from the great progress we've made in the past century. In that sense I think it's much more substantiated than your "faith" that we won't.

The quest for a "theory of everything" is a fools game. You have to be a programmer to think of everything in terms of machines. There are some things that are simply beyond human limitations, but fools still seek to discover them because they want the world to be a place where every single thing is explainable in human terms. They do not have the restraint to know there are some things better left unknown and some things that are patently unknowable.
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Like what? I'm all for caution and of course it's not feasible to know and understand everything. But then you tell me you believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing, omnibenevolent God with oddly anthropomorphic traits and then you shroud it in such mystery that it is stated with certainty that trying to understand him is futile. At least when I believe things it's because they satisfy my intellect, not because they satisfy my emotions. And when I don't understand something, at least I fucking try and whatever I come up with can't be worse than your cop-out.

You can remove an engine from a car, and I daresay that because it is missing a key component it will not be faster than humans anymore. Wonderful how scientists cannot distinguish between human beings and machines anymore.
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This doesn't even have anything to do with what I said. I was talking about the brain, a biological machine, being responsible for our sense of right and wrong. Case in point: remove part of it and poof! morality gone. If we had a soul, why would that happen?


Headpunch said:
Good job, Brain. You figured it out. I am, in fact, saying that "good", "evil", and "perfect" are essentially meaningless. If God defined killing as "good", what would make me leave my religion? After all, what I am doing is "perfect" by God's standards, and there certainly isn't a higher set. In case you didn't realize this, I am not a Christian because it is "compatible" with my human nature. It's usually contrary to my human nature, in fact. The whole premise is chilling, I understand, but the problem with your style of arguing is that you presume to understand my thought patterns.
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What I am saying is that there is no incentive to do anything that is "perfect" by God's standard. If killing people was "good", wouldn't it be fair to assume that heaven might not exactly correspond to the idea you have of it? Coming from a God who loves murder, it'd probably be a gorefest. You obey God because you expect a reward. If his concept of "good", "evil" and "perfect" don't correspond to yours, what makes you think his concept of "reward" is anything you'd want? Let's put it another way: if God just swapped the meanings of the words "good" and "evil", would you do "good" because you need to do whatever the word "good" is defined as? Or would you do "evil" because it corresponds to your ideals of good and then end up in hell where Satan does all sorts of "evil" things to you?


Mr_Goodbar said:
A small question directed at atheists; doesn't it take faith to be an atheist? It seems that faith is derided by most atheists, but it takes faith to believe that all that is real can be fully perceived and known by humans. Unless you acknowledge that there could be some higher spiritual reality, I don't see how it can't be faith to be assured in oneself without proof. I'm not trying to insult atheists, I just wanna see what their take on this would be.
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It has to do with Occam's Razor, mostly. The truth is that nothing can be known for sure, but that not everything has the same probability. In general, you want to explain a phenomenon in the simplest way possible, because there are very strong arguments, both mathematical and intuitive, that simpler theories are more probable. For example, if I ask you to complete this sequence:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, ?

You would probably answer 6, but in fact if you posit y = (x-1)(x-2)(x-3)(x-4)(x-5)+x, it works out to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 too, but then it jumps to 120, not 6. But you still answer 6 because y=x is a much simpler theory. The same goes for science and whether the supernatural exists or not. If there exist things that we cannot perceive or know in any way, regardless of what they are, we don't see a difference, and it is simpler, hence more probable, to assume that there is nothing.

God is a very complex entity, therefore a very complex explanation, if you compare it with the current state of the art in science. It does not really explain anything that cannot be explained much more precisely by simpler means. To add insult to injury, if something "supernatural" existed, there is absolutely no logical requirement for it to be sentient or anything resembling a God, which means that God does not only have to compete with naturalistic explanations, it has to compete with a near-infinity of oddball non-naturalistic theories.

In a nutshell, "faith" is belief in something that is improbable, either because it does not really explain anything, or because what it explains is explained better by something simpler. Belief in something probable is not faith. That is why believing in Santa Claus is faith, but believing Santa Claus does not exist isn't. And that is why believing in God is faith, whereas atheism requires no faith (unless you say that God does not exist with 100% certainty, but then you're just wrong). Therefore, the burden of proof is on the believer. It just always is. Positive claims require evidence because the sheer number of possibilities makes it so that they are systemically less probable than the negative claims.

Note: it also depends on the type of proposition. The prior that "something is green" is higher than the prior that "nothing is green", because given a limited number of colors and the large number of objects that exist, the number of possibilities where something is green is greater than the number of possibilities where nothing is green. There are many indirect factors to take into account too: if you tell me you ate reindeer yesterday, the rational belief is to believe you because of strong evidence that people don't usually lie about these things. However, if you tell me absolutely nothing about yourself and I have to express a belief, it would be faith to believe you ate reindeer, but not faith to believe you did not. Of course, I have to be aware that there is a chance that you did eat reindeer and my belief is wrong, but it is still not faith, just a reasonable estimate, just like it is not faith to believe God does not exist when there is no evidence that he does.

And even if there was some minor evidence, such as Jesus existing, it seems overwhelmingly more probable to me that Jesus was not divine, did not do anything supernatural and "sinned" a couple times, like everybody else. To take evidence for Jesus and infer the truth of the whole Bible from this is a recipe for disaster - for example, there is zero evidence that God really is all-loving and does not just pretend because he's a narcissist, much to the contrary. I believe the Big Bang occurred because it explains a great amount of observations for which God does not provide the slightest hint. Whatever I do not know, I do not know and I trust science to eventually find out answers. I would not say that it is faith, because science is known to deliver. And if it doesn't deliver, I don't see how religion could possibly fare better.
 
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