Crosswords1 min ago
Is there a god?
750 Answers
Is there a god? I mean look at all the different relgions around the world who all believe that THEY are right & the others are wrong. They can't all be right can they. Which is why in my opion it all rubbish.
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WaddyaThink
You are criticising an observation I didn't make. I said ��Love� does not massacre innocents�. Nothing to do with punishment for transgressions.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines �faith�, not I.
The theory of evolution has been proven time and time again with predicted results in the laboratory and more recent lab work observing demonstrable evolution at the molecular level.
The evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly closer to proof than is the evidence for the existence of God.
You demonstrate both ignorance and prejudice when you say that evolution will never be proved. What is more interesting, though, is your statement that there are still missing links. Missing links in what, exactly?
I am not speculating at my origins. I am confident that I know where I came from. I may not know every last detail, but I am nevertheless confident that I am here as the result of a sequence of accidental developments. Where did you come from?
My �faith� is based on sound reason, observation of the real world and common sense. Upon what, exactly, do you base your faith?
I am not trying to prove you wrong, just trying to show you that you don�t know just what it is that you have faith in. When you refuse to engage in that discourse properly, it can be frustrating. Fortunately, having to type this out gives me time to cool down and at least appear to be civilized. And you must guard against the assumption that your perception of a tone in text is reliable.
Now your turn � what is your understanding of the nature of God? What is your God like and what has he done? And to give you very fair warning � there will be supplementary questions. Would you care to engage in this discussion?
You are criticising an observation I didn't make. I said ��Love� does not massacre innocents�. Nothing to do with punishment for transgressions.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines �faith�, not I.
The theory of evolution has been proven time and time again with predicted results in the laboratory and more recent lab work observing demonstrable evolution at the molecular level.
The evidence for evolution is overwhelmingly closer to proof than is the evidence for the existence of God.
You demonstrate both ignorance and prejudice when you say that evolution will never be proved. What is more interesting, though, is your statement that there are still missing links. Missing links in what, exactly?
I am not speculating at my origins. I am confident that I know where I came from. I may not know every last detail, but I am nevertheless confident that I am here as the result of a sequence of accidental developments. Where did you come from?
My �faith� is based on sound reason, observation of the real world and common sense. Upon what, exactly, do you base your faith?
I am not trying to prove you wrong, just trying to show you that you don�t know just what it is that you have faith in. When you refuse to engage in that discourse properly, it can be frustrating. Fortunately, having to type this out gives me time to cool down and at least appear to be civilized. And you must guard against the assumption that your perception of a tone in text is reliable.
Now your turn � what is your understanding of the nature of God? What is your God like and what has he done? And to give you very fair warning � there will be supplementary questions. Would you care to engage in this discussion?
And slightly sort of related to the 'clever people' theme: When there is such overwhelming evidence supporting the theory of evolution, when it makes such good common sense and when that theory can also be incorporated into a faith in God and even into a faith in God's creation of everything, then why oh why oh why does anyone expend any effort in fruitless and pointless denial of it? Evolution is for theists and atheists alike; it is something we can all agree on without compromising our views (unless those views are outdated dogma, of course).
I used to have a secretary that would shuttle between two of us, the most confused look on her face, as the only scribblings that mounted up on the documents were FYI, WTF, HTFWIK.
I admit that understanding the brain is just a luxury. Unless you've got alzheimers, parkinsons, autism, somit like that. You see, G.K Chesterton once said...:-)))
Merlin do you believe that atheism is common sense? Why? My belief in God has a past a present and a future, the theory of evolution ends when every human being has been wiped off the face of the planet, (but then i suppose cockroaches inherit the earth). To believe that your body and soul (if you even believe you have one?) are the end product of millions of years of accidents is sad. The missing link i am reffering to in your belief of evolution is the point between before the big bang and human beings as they are now. Yes the whole "theory" of evolution, What happened before the big bang? How do you even know the big bang occurred. You see, to believe in natural selection and the theory of evolution, you have to believe that God does not exist and so the earth was formed in some other manner, perhaps another massive accident? Let me ask you, why do you think it is wrong to end another mans life? Is morality a result of mutations and natural selection? What purpose would that serve other than to hinder the dog eat dog approach of our neanderthal ancestors. Why do people feel good when they listen to music that inspires them? Is love simply a coarse animal attraction between humans that is brought about by the need to reproduce? I know there are lots of questions, but i cant understand how you could think that all of these things are the result of nothing more than a mutation. After all, what is it that makes one person so different from the next, apart from their outward appearance. If i am foolhardy for believing that i was created by a higher being that bestowed upon me all of the characteristics and personality traits that i possess, than i would rather be foolhardy than the result of an accident.
I think that's a great post wdya, and there's plenty to chew over for those who side with you and those who don't. I think those who do not believe in "God" (as commonly defined), despite having good reasons for disbelief, can throw the baby out with the bathwater, and most do. By 'bathwater' here I mean 'plainly irrational beliefs' and by 'baby' I mean 'sense of mystery, the undiscovered, that things may lie beyond reason, and that there may be ultimate explanations which we do not yet know, and that there may be other ways of knowing that lie beyond normal human reason. I lay the blame for this deplorable state of affairs with religion itself (misrepresenting its case) and the flavour of reasoning we got from 'Enlightened Humanism' (misrepresenting its case).
The very strange thing is that far from things getting 'colder' and 'more logical' when you step away from religion, the very opposite happens, if you really look. Physics and Astronomy are just a total blast, full stuff that is far far weirder than 'resurrecting the dead'. As examples I would profer quantum mechanics, time, space, gravity, and 'weird objects' like blackholes and quasars. Basically what I'm saying is that 'real life', that indescribable feeling of samey normality that we encounter every day, leads us into an intoxicated illusion of what things are really like. As an example, you are situated now in the 'Now', you read the start of this post in the 'past' and you will read the end in about 20 seconds. What is real is the 'now' and it travels as a 'single frame' into the future. But nowhere at all in physics (and that is a lot of very very bright minds thrashing away to find answers) is anyone yet giving decent evidence or theories that this view is at all justifiable. There is no 'preferential frame', ie the 'Now'. Your past and your future may be just as valid as your present. They may all 'exist' still. I think this is important and very heartening since: a) we build up our ideas of the Universe and 'God' based on the way we think things like space and time are shaped, and if we need to reshape them then we need to reshape our ideas of the universe and God too. b) They offer us tremendous hope that the view of the non-god universe as being a 'cold' rational place may not be true at all.
Overall, your posting pointed out some real truisms, no matter what is 'believed': that humans should have exist, and in my opinion, that the universe should 'be', is just very weird indeed. It is just so strange, and if you probe into the prerequisites for it (presence of heavy elements, rate of spacetime expansion, size of solar system, etc), it is soooo unlikely that we should be here, it would almost make you think that a God had made it so. But there may be othe reasons, and we have to rule them out before we jump to any conclusions about a being who, let's face it, doesn't seem to want to have too much to do with us at the minute. For example, there may be 7 billion zillion different universes (why not?), and we just happen to be in that one were the necessary patterns came together for us to exist (the 'anthropic' principle). It may be that the universe is the only one and that by its nature it gravitates towards producing intelligent beings. It may be that in fact our consciousness is some kind of illusion or 'simulation'. Maybe. We just don't know. What we do know is that there are a zillion different things that our ancestors didn't know, fundamental things, that we do know, and in our humility we should accept that there may be missing info that our kids' kids' kids may work out that really opens up the debate. I would expect, for example, that the existence of other universes should be worked out within the next 300 years.
I just wanted to profer my opinion about a couple of things in your post:
evolution: the theory would remain true whether we went on existing or not. The evidence for it is very solid, once you really examine it, it does seem like the 99.9 % viable option. It's not based on a series of accidents, but a bunch of accidents (random genetic mutation, every time a conception occurs) within the setting of non-accidents (non-random selection, ie natural selection: the 'fitter' will survive better than the 'less fit': the better adapted individual will outsurvive the other in his/her genes). The latter is really not up for discussion any more, just look all around you, it happens every day. That is evolution, brother.
Technically, there was nothing before the Big Bang. This seems very difficult to take on board, probably because we are creatures of spacetime, and do not exist outwith it. Spacetime was created around about the time of the BigBang. In fact, best theories suggest that there would have been a small gap after the actual 'Bang' during which period there was actually not 'time'. Since spacetime came with the BigBang, it does not mean anything (probably? see above) to talk of a 'before'.
evolution: the theory would remain true whether we went on existing or not. The evidence for it is very solid, once you really examine it, it does seem like the 99.9 % viable option. It's not based on a series of accidents, but a bunch of accidents (random genetic mutation, every time a conception occurs) within the setting of non-accidents (non-random selection, ie natural selection: the 'fitter' will survive better than the 'less fit': the better adapted individual will outsurvive the other in his/her genes). The latter is really not up for discussion any more, just look all around you, it happens every day. That is evolution, brother.
Technically, there was nothing before the Big Bang. This seems very difficult to take on board, probably because we are creatures of spacetime, and do not exist outwith it. Spacetime was created around about the time of the BigBang. In fact, best theories suggest that there would have been a small gap after the actual 'Bang' during which period there was actually not 'time'. Since spacetime came with the BigBang, it does not mean anything (probably? see above) to talk of a 'before'.
The 'Big Bang' 'theory' is actually based on reasoning from empirical observation. We can in fact 'see' the Big Bang. The afterglow of the Big Bang is all around us, it left its imprint. Furthermore, we know that it started with a singularity, not a blob, or a bunch of things, but one 'thing', a single entity, incredibly small, you could hold it between the lines on your fingerprints. We know this because the entire universe is accelerating away from a single point, and it is all moving away, it must have come from a single point. When you go to cross the road, you'll notice that the cars all seem to go 'Meeewaaaammmm' past you. The 'waaam' is because the same 'sound' is now from something that is heading away from you. This is what is happening to the light from everything around you, it is all heading away, it tends to the red part of the spectrum, that is how we know it is heading away.
It is not really proper to talk of 'belief' in evolution, it is based on empirical evidence, 'belief' is more appropriate to holding something to be true despite evidence or without evidence. 'Evolution' does not technically preclude the existence of a higher personal or ultimate being, the problem at the moment is that evolution currently supplants the main reason given by our forefathers as to why 'God' should be believed to exist.
It is not really proper to talk of 'belief' in evolution, it is based on empirical evidence, 'belief' is more appropriate to holding something to be true despite evidence or without evidence. 'Evolution' does not technically preclude the existence of a higher personal or ultimate being, the problem at the moment is that evolution currently supplants the main reason given by our forefathers as to why 'God' should be believed to exist.
Some v. interesting points about morality etc you make. Back to my original point, I think that religion has usurped morality from a pre-existent position in the universe, the existence of moral norms in the human heart may belie the universe's ultimate goal in creating sentient intelligent beings. Humanism, in general, dictates that 'norma normans est norma normati', ie that we should always 'do good, avoid evil', but that the attribution of the tag 'good' or 'evil' to various acts is arbitrary and so has no ultimate grounding, and would marry very well with the deterministic beliefs of someone who would attribute the cause of various behaviours to traits inherited from evolutionary processes.
Love/music etc. Psychology being my field, I totally am with you on that line of argument and I refuse to believe that the feelings and knowledge derived from such things can be reduced to procecsses akin to normal reasoning. Psychologists often adopt the authority for reasoning about such things, but they never justify ownership of such things properly, so ignore them.
"One person different from the next". My God, you are quite a thinker, aren't you? Modern psychology only came about because it dictated that there was such a thing as 'human nature' and that it is reasonable to make statements about basically 'everyone', within defined limits of probability. Unfortunately psychologists, from day 1, have been s&&t at philosophy, and don't realise that there are limits to this and that individual differences may be more than quirks. For example, psychology cannot yet reject the hypothesis that supposed 'human nature' may not in fact be a basic framework within which we operate, but in fact the things that we 'do in fact do' are the result of a pure, free, choice. Psychology tends to shudder at such a thing and spurn it, because it cannot define it. It is, by its very nature, beyond explanation.
Love/music etc. Psychology being my field, I totally am with you on that line of argument and I refuse to believe that the feelings and knowledge derived from such things can be reduced to procecsses akin to normal reasoning. Psychologists often adopt the authority for reasoning about such things, but they never justify ownership of such things properly, so ignore them.
"One person different from the next". My God, you are quite a thinker, aren't you? Modern psychology only came about because it dictated that there was such a thing as 'human nature' and that it is reasonable to make statements about basically 'everyone', within defined limits of probability. Unfortunately psychologists, from day 1, have been s&&t at philosophy, and don't realise that there are limits to this and that individual differences may be more than quirks. For example, psychology cannot yet reject the hypothesis that supposed 'human nature' may not in fact be a basic framework within which we operate, but in fact the things that we 'do in fact do' are the result of a pure, free, choice. Psychology tends to shudder at such a thing and spurn it, because it cannot define it. It is, by its very nature, beyond explanation.
Overall, I don't think that 'higher power' and 'accident' are your only options, that's just the common assumption. There may be a million different explanations that exist between the two, let's just try and work them out.
I want to thank you for that awesome post, you should write some more, I am very happy to have learned something today.
I think that's a great post wdya, and there's plenty to chew over for those who side with you and those who don't. I think those who do not believe in "God" (as commonly defined), despite having good reasons for disbelief, can throw the baby out with the bathwater, and most do. By 'bathwater' here I mean 'plainly irrational beliefs' and by 'baby' I mean 'sense of mystery, the undiscovered, that things may lie beyond reason, and that there may be ultimate explanations which we do not yet know, and that there may be other ways of knowing that lie beyond normal human reason. I lay the blame for this deplorable state of affairs with religion itself (misrepresenting its case) and the flavour of reasoning we got from 'Enlightened Humanism' (misrepresenting its case).
The very strange thing is that far from things getting 'colder' and 'more logical' when you step away from religion, the very opposite happens, if you really look. Physics and Astronomy are just a total blast, full stuff that is far far weirder than 'resurrecting the dead'. As examples I would profer quantum mechanics, time, space, gravity, and 'weird objects' like blackholes and quasars. Basically what I'm saying is that 'real life', that indescribable feeling of samey normality that we encounter every day, leads us into an intoxicated illusion of what things are really like. As an example, you are situated now in the 'Now', you read the start of this post in the 'past' and you will read the end in about 20 seconds. What is real is the 'now' and it travels as a 'single frame' into the future. But nowhere at all in physics (and that is a lot of very very bright minds thrashing away to find answers) is anyone yet giving decent evidence or theories that this view is at all justifiable. There is no 'preferential frame', ie the 'Now'. Your past and your future may be just as valid as your present. They may all 'exist' still. I think this is important and very heartening since: a) we build up our ideas of the Universe and 'God' based on the way we think things like space and time are shaped, and if we need to reshape them then we need to reshape our ideas of the universe and God too. b) They offer us tremendous hope that the view of the non-god universe as being a 'cold' rational place may not be true at all.
Overall, your posting pointed out some real truisms, no matter what is 'believed': that humans should have exist, and in my opinion, that the universe should 'be', is just very weird indeed. It is just so strange, and if you probe into the prerequisites for it (presence of heavy elements, rate of spacetime expansion, size of solar system, etc), it is soooo unlikely that we should be here, it would almost make you think that a God had made it so. But there may be othe reasons, and we have to rule them out before we jump to any conclusions about a being who, let's face it, doesn't seem to want to have too much to do with us at the minute. For example, there may be 7 billion zillion different universes (why not?), and we just happen to be in that one were the necessary patterns came together for us to exist (the 'anthropic' principle). It may be that the universe is the only one and that by its nature it gravitates towards producing intelligent beings. It may be that in fact our consciousness is some kind of illusion or 'simulation'. Maybe. We just don't know. What we do know is that there are a zillion different things that our ancestors didn't know, fundamental things, that we do know, and in our humility we should accept that there may be missing info that our kids' kids' kids may work out that really opens up the debate. I would expect, for example, that the existence of other universes should be worked out within the next 300 years.
I just wanted to profer my opinion about a couple of things in your post:
evolution: the theory would remain true whether we went on existing or not. The evidence for it is very solid, once you really examine it, it does seem like the 99.9 % viable option. It's not based on a series of accidents, but a bunch of accidents (random genetic mutation, every time a conception occurs) within the setting of non-accidents (non-random selection, ie natural selection: the 'fitter' will survive better than the 'less fit': the better adapted individual will outsurvive the other in his/her genes). The latter is really not up for discussion any more, just look all around you, it happens every day. That is evolution, brother.
Technically, there was nothing before the Big Bang. This seems very difficult to take on board, probably because we are creatures of spacetime, and do not exist outwith it. Spacetime was created around about the time of the BigBang. In fact, best theories suggest that there would have been a small gap after the actual 'Bang' during which period there was actually not 'time'. Since spacetime came with the BigBang, it does not mean anything (probably? see above) to talk of a 'before'.
evolution: the theory would remain true whether we went on existing or not. The evidence for it is very solid, once you really examine it, it does seem like the 99.9 % viable option. It's not based on a series of accidents, but a bunch of accidents (random genetic mutation, every time a conception occurs) within the setting of non-accidents (non-random selection, ie natural selection: the 'fitter' will survive better than the 'less fit': the better adapted individual will outsurvive the other in his/her genes). The latter is really not up for discussion any more, just look all around you, it happens every day. That is evolution, brother.
Technically, there was nothing before the Big Bang. This seems very difficult to take on board, probably because we are creatures of spacetime, and do not exist outwith it. Spacetime was created around about the time of the BigBang. In fact, best theories suggest that there would have been a small gap after the actual 'Bang' during which period there was actually not 'time'. Since spacetime came with the BigBang, it does not mean anything (probably? see above) to talk of a 'before'.
The 'Big Bang' 'theory' is actually based on reasoning from empirical observation. We can in fact 'see' the Big Bang. The afterglow of the Big Bang is all around us, it left its imprint. Furthermore, we know that it started with a singularity, not a blob, or a bunch of things, but one 'thing', a single entity, incredibly small, you could hold it between the lines on your fingerprints. We know this because the entire universe is accelerating away from a single point, and it is all moving away, it must have come from a single point. When you go to cross the road, you'll notice that the cars all seem to go 'Meeewaaaammmm' past you. The 'waaam' is because the same 'sound' is now from something that is heading away from you. This is what is happening to the light from everything around you, it is all heading away, it tends to the red part of the spectrum, that is how we know it is heading away.
It is not really proper to talk of 'belief' in evolution, it is based on empirical evidence, 'belief' is more appropriate to holding something to be true despite evidence or without evidence. 'Evolution' does not technically preclude the existence of a higher personal or ultimate being, the problem at the moment is that evolution currently supplants the main reason given by our forefathers as to why 'God' should be believed to exist.
It is not really proper to talk of 'belief' in evolution, it is based on empirical evidence, 'belief' is more appropriate to holding something to be true despite evidence or without evidence. 'Evolution' does not technically preclude the existence of a higher personal or ultimate being, the problem at the moment is that evolution currently supplants the main reason given by our forefathers as to why 'God' should be believed to exist.
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