Question:
… 1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation? 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go? 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us? 4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain? 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? 
Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing? 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts? 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net Pro-Humanist FREELOVER Daily http://freelover.home.att.net ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Response:
I am an Agnostic leaning more towards atheist, but I can probably offer theoretical answers to all/most of these 1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation?
if you owned a dog (lesser life form) would you feel compelled to tell it everything you know or feel the need to let it share everything you do? 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go?
I think the idea is we use our time on earth to let him know if we deserve to get into heaven. 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us?
If you take the term god as meaning all powerful there could really only be one. 7) Communicate with us, like, for real?
do you deem your dog worthy of communication, any more than "SIT". Perhaps we are insignificant to him. Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing?
See point 7 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us?
Again using the dog analogy, usually people have the attitude, do as I say not do as I do. Maybe he lives by a different set of rules, or maybe no rules at all
Response:
I will give it a try….. If you want to understand God, look to man, we were created in his image, so we have the same motivations. God has given us everything we need, he has set up the universe ( experiment ) and is observing the results ( rats in a maze ). He takes pleasure when we suceed, ( reach the cheese) and is sad when we dont, However, he does not perturb the experiment by fixing things, if he did there would be no point to the existence of the universe. He can work within the probibilities, but as for violating the laws of physics….nope. 1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation?
So, the answer is there would be no point to existance. why run an experiment, play a game, watch a play, enter into a relationship, if you know every answer, feeling, moment before hand. 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go?
The initial conditions of the experiment, the premise of the sit com, …etc 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us?
The cosmos is not infinite, its a closed universe. 4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain?
Again, would make the experiment invalid. You can’t have ying without yang, joy without pain, there is no point in playing the game if we are all winners…..its human nature, capitalism, evolution, call it what you will, survival of the fittest. 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing? 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts? 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us?
again what would be the point of existance if one ( or mankind as a whole) could not improve, grow, face challenges, overcome problems….etc. Life in Eden is not Eden for man, it is not in our nature to be content, happy, fat, feed and complacent…..well at least not the best amoung us…..
Response:
I am an Agnostic leaning more towards atheist, but I can probably offer theoretical answers to all/most of these 1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation? if you owned a dog (lesser life form) would you feel compelled to tell it everything you know or feel the need to let it share everything you do?
If you owned a dog, would you never pet, feed, clothe, talk to, take care of, nurture it, acting as if you didn’t exist, telling it (supposedly through other ancestor dogs that lived almost 2,000 years ago and older) that it must "believe in you"? Probably not, as that would call into question whether or not you even existed, unless the dog could smell you, but in this analogy, you don’t even exist so all the dog can do is imagine it can smell you – poor dog. By the way, would you threaten your dog with eternal hellfire if it didn’t "believe" you existed? If so, would that make you a demon, rather than a god? 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go? I think the idea is we use our time on earth to let him know if we deserve to get into heaven.
Actually, most faiths require either a combination of "just believe" and "acts" or mere "just believe and beg for forgiveness" to earn the supposed immortality gig. 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us? If you take the term god as meaning all powerful there could really only be one.
Why? Do the math – you take this universe, I’ll take the next one, etc…, and if all-powerful, explain the pain suffered by children. I know, not god’s fault ’cause it’s an irresponsible entity … 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? do you deem your dog worthy of communication, any more than "SIT". Perhaps we are insignificant to him.
Perhaps it doesn’t exist (see 1). Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing? See point 7
See reply to 1. Hey, where did question 9 go? 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts? 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us? Again using the dog analogy, usually people have the attitude, do as I say not do as I do. Maybe he lives by a different set of rules, or maybe no rules at all
How does such a supposed being differ from one just whooped up out of the human imagination? – - – ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net Pro-Humanist FREELOVER Daily http://freelover.home.att.net ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – I will give it a try….. If you want to understand God, look to man, we were created in his image, so we have the same motivations. God has given us everything we need, he has set up the universe ( experiment ) and is observing the results ( rats in a maze ). He takes pleasure when we suceed, ( reach the cheese) and is sad when we dont, However, he does not perturb the experiment by fixing things, if he did there would be no point to the existence of the universe. He can work within the probibilities, but as for violating the laws of physics….nope.
Now, wait a minute, that’s the big claim/affirmation of many faiths, the "miracles" … do away with those violations of physics, and all you’ve got is "make believe". 1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation? So, the answer is there would be no point to existance. why run an experiment, play a game, watch a play, enter into a relationship, if you know every answer, feeling, moment before hand.
What you call an experiment, I call reality. As for evidence there’s a sky daddy experimenting, got anything other than "make believe" and an ancient document loaded with myth/deceit/contradictions to support that position? 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go? The initial conditions of the experiment, the premise of the sit com, …etc
The pain suffered by humans, the horror, the misery, and yet you try to elevate the life experience to the level of a rat in a maze … seems such a god would be a demon, if your experiment postulation is accurate. 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us? The cosmos is not infinite, its a closed universe.
Oh? Is that theoretical or a supposition of biblical? By the by, with all the solar systems and planets being discovered, it’s becoming increasingly likely that life is spread throughout the universe, but not to worry, what with the v – - – - a – - – - s – - – - t beyond vast distances between life entities, it’s not all that likely we’ll ever come face-to-face with other life forms . . . You see, something the human mind is incapable of comprehending is the vast numbers of stars, solar systems, planets, galaxies and the vast beyond vast distances between every single entity … here’s a small sampling trying to put it into something the human mind can comprehend … – - – - – - Size of the Universe – - – - – - A perspective on the size of the universe… If the entire solar system were reduced to the size of a grain of sand, our Milky Way galaxy would be *21 kilometers* across and our nearest big galaxy, Andromeda, would be *483 kilometers* away. The size of the observable universe, on this scale, would be *over 4 million kilometers*. A quote from -Imagining the Universe: A Visual Journey- … "Although the universe may be finite, it is unbounded. No matter where one is, one appears to be at its center. We cannot talk usefully about what lies beyond the limits of the universe, because space itself can only be defined by the matter it contains. As to what matter space does contain there is great mystery. Most of the matter in space–perhaps 90 percent of it–is invisible." — Radius of the Earth = 6,400 kilometers Distance to the Moon = 400,000 kilometers Distance to the Sun = 150,000,000 (150 million) kilometers Distance to Pluto = 6,000,000,000 (6 billion) kilometers Distance to Proxima Centauri (our nearest star extant from the sun) = 40,000,000,000,000 (40 trillion) kilometers Number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy = most estimates have the figure pegged at 400,000,000,000 (400 billion) Distance to Sirius (the brightest star in the sky) = 80,000,000,000,000 (80 trillion) kilometers Size of the Milky Way galaxy = 450,000,000,000,000,000 (450 quadrillion) kilometers Number of galaxies similar to the Milky Way galaxy in the universe = over 100,000,000 (100 million) Number of galaxies in the universe (total of all kinds) = over 80,000,000,000 (80 billion) Distance to the Andromeda galaxy, the nearest big galaxy (to the Milky Way galaxy) = 21,000,000,000,000,000,000 (21 quintillion) kilometers The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are part of the "local" galaxy cluster of about 30 galaxies, the size of which is = 30,000,000,000,000,000,000 (30 quintillion) kilometers The size of the observable universe = 180,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (180 sextillion) kilometers – - – Numeric reference chart: 1 kilometer = 0.62 miles American system used for large numbers: million … number followed by 6 zeroes billion … number followed by 9 zeroes trillion … number followed by 12 zeroes quadrillion … number followed by 15 zeroes quintillion … number followed by 18 zeroes sextillion … number followed by 21 zeroes – - – – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – 4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain? Again, would make the experiment invalid. You can’t have ying without yang, joy without pain, there is no point in playing the game if we are all winners…..its human nature, capitalism, evolution, call it what you will, survival of the fittest. 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing? 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts? 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us? again what would be the point of existance if one ( or mankind as a whole) could not improve, grow, face challenges, overcome problems….etc. Life in Eden is not Eden for man, it is not in our nature to be content, happy, fat, feed and complacent…..well at least not the best amoung us…..
It’s at the core of our very nature to delight in being happy, content, fed, clothed, sheltered, loved, desired, empowered. Per faith myths, that’s heaven. Per your experiment analogy, god either doesn’t exist or is evil to the bone, like a scientist who would delight in watching rats suffer, yet making damn sure the scientist was not blamed for their suffering – poor rats. – - – Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net
Response:
He can work within the probibilities, but as for violating the laws of physics….nope. Now, wait a minute, that’s the big claim/affirmation of many faiths, the "miracles" … do away with those violations of physics, and all you’ve got is "make believe".
If He exists, He can of course violate the laws of physics, but he does not. However, one can do a lot with probabilities and quantum mechanics… Heisenburg may had trolled here….ha physics humor. What you call an experiment, I call reality. As for evidence there’s a sky daddy experimenting, got anything other than "make believe" and an ancient document loaded with myth/deceit/contradictions to support that position?
Absolutely no evidence whatsoever. I can make many arugments pointing to statisitcal flukes of our existance, supernova’s making heavy elements, our sun being just right, water expanding and getting less dense when solid water existing in all three states on the surface of the earth. Magnetic field protecting us from ionizing radiation. ozone protecting us from UV. Heck free oxegen in the atmosphere is miraculous. Intelligence and language coming out of evolution. HOWEVER, the old argument holds, we would not be here to observe all the flukes if everything was not just right. So no proof whatsoever, but does make ya think… the odds of our existence are so small, is it actually not a possibility of God sparking and guiding the universe. The pain suffered by humans, the horror, the misery, and yet you try to elevate the life experience to the level of a rat in a maze … seems such a god would be a demon, if your experiment postulation is accurate.
would the rat perfer not to exist? Would you perfer not to exist. The universe provides us all we require to be happy and experience Joy. That is a gift, what we make of the gift speaks to our nature, not the universes. The cosmos is not infinite, its a closed universe. Oh? Is that theoretical or a supposition of biblical?
Theoretical, the universe if a vacuum fluctuation, think of a bubble appering coke ( ie the big bang ), inside the bubble is a little, coke, water vapor, sugar floating around in the gas phase….that is the stuff in the vaccum fluctuation, or us. The universe is expanding but closed. it’s becoming increasingly likely that life is spread throughout the universe,
That is still a large unknown, but would be cool. You see, something the human mind is incapable of comprehending is the vast numbers of stars, solar systems, planets, galaxies and the vast beyond vast distances between every single entity …
Yes we can, the human mind is amazing, math can demonstrate it all quite well, expressed as physics, chem etc….. It’s at the core of our very nature to delight in being happy, content, fed, clothed, sheltered, loved, desired, empowered.
I would say we WANT to be all those things, but are never satisfied, or Happy enough, we always want a softer bed…….or faster internet connection. Per faith myths, that’s heaven. Per your experiment analogy, god either doesn’t exist or is evil to the bone, like a scientist who would delight in watching rats suffer, yet making damn sure the scientist was not blamed for their suffering – poor rats.
A rat man god analogy fails, rats are not made in our image. Better yet, if we ever succed in AI, then we would take joy is the AI’s accomplishments, not joy in its failures, but joy in it learning from its failure. I am a humanist, humans rule…..in the entire ayn rand philosopical way…..but I cannot observe the universe with all the things that had to be just so, and accept that it is all just a cosmic fluke. But I could be wrong, I often am….lol
Response:
1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation? God created us with free will and therefor had to give us the opportunity to either serve him or ourselves. unfortunately out ancestors chose the latter even with the complete knowledge of his existence. God doesn’t desire our forced worship of him therefore he doesn’t walk up to our front door and tell us we must obey him or he will toss us in a pit of fire.
That doesn’t address the question. Knowledge was the issue … where is it? The supposed god provided none. As to your second point, worship, what’s up with that? That sounds like a master-slave setup, doesn’t it? As for free will, you are bounded by your genes, memes, life experiences (including memes and the physicality of your environment), and random activity of the brain. Doesn’t seem all that "free" to me. 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go? All people are instinctively aware of the presence of God. are there (or have there been) any civilization that were apart from the common world that did not have some sort of gods? I’ve never heard of a atheist lost tribe in africa.
That doesn’t address the question. If we’re born in heaven, living free of pain-death-disease-suffering, wouldn’t that be the path you would create for beings if you truly loved them? The natural history record reflects hundreds of millions of years of death, pain, suffering, and horror (for example, you wouldn’t have wanted to be around on earth around 65 million years ago, as a 6-mile wide rock hit the earth – the creatures existing at the time, unfortunately, had no choice in the matter) … 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us? I believe that before man sinned (in the garden of eden) many more dimensions of out universe were probably open to us and we had abilities beyond what out mortal bodies are able of. I mean when the serpent talked to Eve she wasn’t shocked the this snake was talking to her. so I wonder what other abilities were removed from us when man sinned?
You are aware than the Genesis story is myth, aren’t you? 4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain? Pain began as a result of man’s sin against God. before Jesus comes back to cast out satin and rule over the earth with his believers many more horrible things will and must happen in the world. Satin is a large reason for why allot of pain will continue.
So, I suffer because some guy did a no-no? Sorry, I ain’t buying it. You should seek counsel from the likes of educated honest theologians like John Spong, and become accustomed to the mythical nature of the philosophies/characters used by the bible writers. Clue – the bible is not, in substantial measure, historically accurate material, even though it does have humans and places that actually existed, the documents are surrounded by mythical/magical humans/beings/places used in the mythos of the day and age in which the documents were constructed and reconstructed (said reconstruction con- tinuing in the current day). It’s a construct used by humans to try to make sense of their world (along with a host of other reasons humans created other-worldly beings/places/events to try to fill in the unknowns of existence with superstitions and myths known as religion). 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? see answer 1
Communication does not beg for slavery, as you imply from your answer to 1. Not unless, of course, god wants us to be slaves – if that’s the case, that’s what awaits you in the supposed heaven you believe is the fate of those who follow the "right" god and the "right" way of dealing with that god. Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing? We are lucky he didn’t completely destroy the earth and man at the time of the flood. We are lucky we have the opportunity to talk to God at all.
There was no worldwide flood. The flood to which you refer is an ancient myth. As for floods and other events that are evidenced in the naturalistic record, see the science books on natural history (and do your- self a favor, steer clear of the creationist religion for your science facts) for bounteous details on the many freezing-flooding-volcano erupting-asteroid/comet impact events which have dramatically effected life on earth for billions of years … 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts? 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us? That is exactly why he created us to have a relationship just like that, but God despises sin and cant stand to be around it. that’s why he sent his son to pay for our sin so that we can have a relationship Him again.
See reply to your reply on question 6, above. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net Pro-Humanist FREELOVER Daily http://freelover.home.att.net ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Response:
Thanks for the reply. Some excellent points. Rather than address the points one-by-one, I’ll speak to the wonder some have over everything being "just right" for us to be here. That could be debated from several standpoints, but I’ll approach it from the following single view, in this post … If the chances of there being something like "us" was 1 in a trillion to the trillionth power -and- there was a trillion in a trillion to the trillionth power of "openings/ possibilities" for something like "us", ever (in other words, an all-but infinite number of chances for there to be an "us", ever) … well then, it would be quite astonishing if not even one of something like "us" ever existed … point in fact, the closer one gets to infinite "openings/possibilities", given *any* chance of something like "us", it becomes all-but certain something like "us" will, in fact, be … Nearing infinity, the chances for "us" are so high that one would expect not only "us", but many entities like "us", to exist within the scope of all that ever was or ever will be, no matter what the odds are construed to be … In other words, it matters not one iota what the per- ceived odds are for "us", what matters, purely mathe- matically speaking, are the "openings/possibilities" (an open unbounded set, for no one has yet to limit exist- ence to any time/place/universe/dimension, giving one an unlimited possibility for there to be something like "us"). Even if the odds could be argued down to an all-but infinitely small chance of something like "us" being, the presence of a much larger open set ("openings/possibil- ities" to the all-but infinite -if not infinite- degree) would all-but make something like "us" an all-but certainty many times over … I know, hard to follow, there. You might think of it as the all-but certainty of "us" or something like "us" existing many times over given a much greater and all-but limitless "open set" – the realm of possibilities, only limited by the physics of all that is or all that has been or ever can be, anywhere, any when, any way, any time, any place, any dimension, ever … You see, the problem with the "oh, there must be a god because the odds against us existing are so high and, hey, here we are" crowd is that they view "us" as existing within a finite set, a finite time (only possible since the big bang or since god said … let there be light), a closed cosmos (all that is or that can be bounded by all that occurred in our dimension since the big bang or since god said … let there be light). With all those "limitations/assumptions", they then boast that the odds of "us" being here are only applicable to that finite set of possibilities (what they think of as all that is, ever has been, or ever could be). Given a big bang (or a god / let there be light event), they assume that the events which transpired were the beginning of all events (i.e., they assume eternal nothingness [aside from god, of course] prior to the big bang and our uni- verse as the entire set, all that is / has been / ever can be) … However, as theoretical physics and exploration of the quantum world has unveiled, there are many naturalistic theories that unveil the "open set" I refer to above, the big bang as being nothing but an event, one of an all-but infinite number of events, along the continuum of the fabric of all that is / has been / ever can be. Much of theoretical physics entails exploration of the possibilities, nay, probabilities of multiple dimensions, multiple universes, alternate physics, and, in essence, a cosmos continuum of which our "little" universe and "time" are but a minute part. Very important to us, but nevertheless, all-but infinitely tiny within the all-but infinite -if not infinite- "open set". To sum up, given all of the above, we’re still left with tween entities capable of life within our tiny portion of space/time/matter/energy within the "open set" … even if sentient life were present at the current time in only 1 of every 100,000 solar systems (note – 1 in 100,000 is quite an arbitrary figure used for example purposes … the actual frequency of sentient life may be much higher or much lower), given that the number of solar systems is estimated (again, arbitrary estimate based on recent discoveries of the likelihood that solar systems are quite likely a naturalistic element of a high percentage of star systems) to be something on the order of … 80 billion (~number of galaxies in the universe) X 100 billion (~average solar systems per galaxy) 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (8 sextillion) total solar systems in the universe do the math – the universe would then contain 80,000,000,000,000,000 (80 quadrillion) solar systems with sentient life However, keep in mind that due to the vast beyond vast distances between galaxies and between solar systems within galaxies, almost all of that sentient life is beyond our reach – in fact, the only sentient life we could even dream of contacting without such fancy things as worm holes and the warping of space, are within our single lonely galaxy, the Milky Way. In essence, 79,999,999,999 galaxies beyond our reach, and only 1 with any hope of "contact" … within that one galaxy, how many solar systems with sentient life based on the 1 in 100,000 form- la above? 1 million … wow … However, we’re still talking vast distances here and a small fraction of solar systems with sentient life, so we best get busy looking if we ever expect to find even one of the vast numbers of sentient beings in our galaxy, and as for contacting them … and/or hearing from them … well … don’t hold your breath, even within our single galaxy, the distances between solar systems with sentient life are so great that we may never be able to have meaningful contact with even one sentient creature extant our itsy bitsy piece of the cosmos, our home, mother earth … – - – Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://freelover.home.att.net – - – – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – He can work within the probabilities, but as for violating the laws of physics….nope. Now, wait a minute, that’s the big claim/affirmation of many faiths, the "miracles" … do away with those violations of physics, and all you’ve got is "make believe". If He exists, He can of course violate the laws of physics, but he does not. However, one can do a lot with probabilities and quantum mechanics… Heisenburg may had trolled here….ha physics humor. What you call an experiment, I call reality. As for evidence there’s a sky daddy experimenting, got anything other than "make believe" and an ancient document loaded with myth/deceit/contradictions to support that position? Absolutely no evidence whatsoever. I can make many arguments pointing to statistical flukes of our existence, supernova’s making heavy elements, our sun being just right, water expanding and getting less dense when solid water existing in all three states on the surface of the earth. Magnetic field protecting us from ionizing radiation. ozone protecting us from UV. Heck free oxygen in the atmosphere is miraculous. Intelligence and language coming out of evolution. HOWEVER, the old argument holds, we would not be here to observe all the flukes if everything was not just right. So no proof whatsoever, but does make ya think… the odds of our existence are so small, is it actually not a possibility of God sparking and guiding the universe. The pain suffered by humans, the horror, the misery, and yet you try to elevate the life experience to the level of a rat in a maze … seems such a god would be a demon, if your experiment postulation is accurate. would the rat prefer not to exist? Would you prefer not to exist. The universe provides us all we require to be happy and experience Joy. That is a gift, what we make of the gift speaks to our nature, not the universes. The cosmos is not infinite, its a closed universe. Oh? Is that theoretical or a supposition of biblical? Theoretical, the universe if a vacuum fluctuation, think of a bubble appearing coke ( i.e. the big bang ), inside the bubble is a little, coke, water vapor, sugar floating around in the gas phase….that is the stuff in the vacuum fluctuation, or us. The universe is expanding but closed. it’s becoming increasingly likely that life is spread throughout the universe, That is still a large unknown, but would be cool. You see, something the human mind is incapable of comprehending is the vast numbers of stars, solar systems, planets, galaxies and the vast beyond vast distances between every single entity … Yes we can, the human mind is amazing, math can demonstrate it all quite well, expressed as physics, chem etc….. It’s at the core of our very nature to delight in being happy, content, fed, clothed, sheltered, loved, desired, empowered. I would say we WANT to be all those things, but are never satisfied, or Happy enough, we always want a softer bed…….or faster internet connection. Per faith myths, that’s heaven. Per your experiment analogy, god either doesn’t exist or is evil to the bone, like a scientist who would delight in watching rats suffer, yet making damn sure the scientist was not blamed for their suffering – poor rats. A rat man god analogy fails, rats are not
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Response:
Morning Dan……it would be much easier for me to argue your side. Your best argument is the one no one can deny, that regaurdless of how faint the odds are of us existing will all the things that had to align just so, it had to of happened because we are here to observe it……no mirical, the odds of throwing six dice and getting six six’s is small, but if it happens and you observe it, it happened, no mirical. on you your arguments…. the closer one gets to infinite "openings/possibilities", given *any* chance of something like "us", it becomes all-but certain something like "us" will, in fact, be … Nearing infinity, the chances for "us" are so high that one would expect not only "us", but many entities like "us", to exist within the scope of all that ever was or ever will be, no matter what the odds are construed to be …
I understand what you are saying, but the flaw in this argument is that the universe is closed…it # suns, # of suns with planets, # of planets with H20 in all three states, # of planets with an oxidizing atmosphere, # of planets with fuel just laying around under the ground….. all of these may be large, but they are not infinite, and if they are not infinite, then they are infinitely water. Even if the odds could be argued down to an all-but infinitely small chance of something like "us" being, the presence of a much larger open set ("openings/possibil- ities" to the all-but infinite -if not infinite- degree) would all-but make something like "us" an all-but certainty many times over …
No true, Carl Sagan in the show Cosoms showed the equation where you do the calculation of #suns – # bad suns – # suns with no planets – # suns with no appropriate planets, – # planets with caustic enviornment, – # planets in which life just does not develope, – # panets where intellegent life does not develope, – the civilizations that self destruct…… and shows that with our best estimates its either 1000’s in our galaxy or 1 in a few trillian against, regaurdless, the numbers are graspable, and no where near the numbers which say its a given… However, as theoretical physics and exploration of the quantum world has unveiled, there are many naturalistic theories that unveil the "open set" I refer to above, the big bang as being nothing but an event, one of an all-but infinite number of events, along the continuum of the fabric of all that is / has been / ever can be.
once again, there are many ‘theories’, but the most favorable ones don’t support your arguments on the open set, in fact I know of no unified field theorys which include the open set as a basis. I will grant you that there is no evidience in the existance of God….it is not a provable suposition. However, with out the Concept of God, with out a higher right and wrong that that provided by Nature, I would see no reason why If I could kill my neigbor, take his car, wife, and house…..because I could….natural selection. Heck our civilization has stopped our evolution, if not infact has reversed it by saving the weak, incompetent, frail and letting them procreate…..with out God and a Moral code generated from a higher plane, you can do all the hand waving you want, but and rational naturalistic moral code would not be anything we accept and recognize.
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Morning Dan……it would be much easier for me to argue your side. Your best argument is the one no one can deny, that regardless of how faint the odds are of us existing will all the things that had to align just so, it had to of happened because we are here to observe it……no miracle, the odds of throwing six dice and getting six six’s is small, but if it happens and you observe it, it happened, no miracle. on you your arguments…. the closer one gets to infinite "openings/possibilities", given *any* chance of something like "us", it becomes all-but certain something like "us" will, in fact, be … Nearing infinity, the chances for "us" are so high that one would expect not only "us", but many entities like "us", to exist within the scope of all that ever was or ever will be, no matter what the odds are construed to be … I understand what you are saying, but the flaw in this argument is that the universe is closed…it # suns, # of suns with planets, # of planets with H20 in all three states, # of planets with an oxidizing atmosphere, # of planets with fuel just laying around under the ground….. all of these may be large, but they are not infinite, and if they are not infinite, then they are infinitely water.
Two comments – 1) the "open set" includes all that ever was, is, ever will be, inclusive and external to our knowledge of that which is which is limited to our universe and times from now back to a point somewhat after the big bang (aside, of course, from theoretical physics which goes where no human has ever gone and, perhaps, ever can go), 2) the vast distances referred to … we have yet to move 1 atom forward in our search for life – it’s a huge universe, after all, and no one can assure us that the naturalistic proclivity for life, which manifested itself on earth, is not present in a plethora of locales (80 quadrillion mentioned in the previous post). – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Even if the odds could be argued down to an all-but infinitely small chance of something like "us" being, the presence of a much larger open set ("openings/possibil- ities" to the all-but infinite -if not infinite- degree) would all-but make something like "us" an all-but certainty many times over … No true, Carl Sagan in the show Cosmos showed the equation where you do the calculation of #suns – # bad suns – # suns with no planets – # suns with no appropriate planets, – # planets with caustic environment, – # planets in which life just does not develop, – # planets where intelligent life does not develop, – the civilizations that self destruct…… and shows that with our best estimates its either 1000’s in our galaxy or 1 in a few trillion against, regardless, the numbers are graspable, and no where near the numbers which say its a given…
Actually, at the time Carl made his estimate, knowledge of the extent of the presence of other solar systems was not present -and- doubts regarding the ability of intelligent life to survive its intellectual adolescence (due in large part to Carl’s fears regarding the U.S. – Soviet nuclear arms race) were high. Also, Carl was not using the "open set", he was using the out-of-fashion "closed set" (our universe, one chance, and this time-span being all that ever has existed), a mindset which has faded significantly over the past few years. However, as theoretical physics and exploration of the quantum world has unveiled, there are many naturalistic theories that unveil the "open set" I refer to above, the big bang as being nothing but an event, one of an all-but infinite number of events, along the continuum of the fabric of all that is / has been / ever can be. once again, there are many ‘theories’, but the most favorable ones don’t support your arguments on the open set, in fact I know of no unified field theories which include the open set as a basis.
Actually, I’m unaware of what ‘favored’ theory you are referring to, for to choose one that doesn’t explain all is, by definition, an admission that the "open set" is possible (even if unlikely) … Here’s a recent theory for you to consider that includes the "open set", in this case viewing our presence at this time as a result of a "cyclic uni- verse" … http://freelover.home.att.net/2002/02/09_to_14.htm A Recycled Universe Monday, February 11, 2002 Excerpts from an article which might lead one to con- template all that is from a perspective far removed from traditional religions (well, far removed from traditional religions of the monotheistic god, though quite at home with many of the cyclic ideas prevalent in eastern reli- gions like hinduism / buddhism / taoism / confuscian- ism …) and quite apart from the notion that the big bang was "the" one and only big bang … Quite a mental exercise required here, as contemplating the physical nature of reality requires an almost infinitely greater amount of mental effort than does the cop out from ancient myth (and the childhood of most in non- eastern cultures) known as "god (or allah or the sky daddy) did it" … – - – begin excerpts – - – http://danfakepix.home.att.net/recycled1.jpg Universal cycle of birth and rebirth – Big bangs result when two 10-dimensional "branes" collide (1) and expand (2) and then collide again (4). In this scenario, our universe (3) marks just one phase in this infinite cycle. … A universal cycle of birth and rebirth occurs every trillion years or so, according to one new cosmology. … The big bang clearly marks some kind of first. That fearsome flash of energy and expansion of space set in motion everything our eyes and telescopes can see today. But on its own, the big bang theory would leave us in a curved universe where matter and energy aren’t well mixed. In fact, we now know that spacetime is flat and that galaxies and radiation are evenly distributed throughout. To shore up the big bang theory, cosmologists proposed that the universe began with a burst of exponential expan- sion from a single uniform patch of space, whose stamp remains on the cosmos to this day. Such inflationary cosmologies have worked so well they’ve crowded out all the competition. During this past year, however, one group of researchers has started to challenge that idea’s preeminence, though the field of cosmology has yet to be completely taken with the new approach. Drawing on some cutting-edge but unproved notions in particle physics, the challengers interpret the big bang as a violent clash between higher-dimensional objects. In the latest installment to the saga, the authors of this interpretation have found a way to turn that single clash into a never-ending struggle that rears its fiery head every trillion years or so, making our universe just one phase in an infinite cycle of birth and rebirth. … String theory has spawned more than one attempt to do away with the big bang singularity. Read about it here. http://www.sciam.com/explorations/2002/021102cyclic/string.html … strings could also exist in a more fundamental, 11-dimensional theory. They collapsed one of these dimensions mathematically into a minuscule line, yielding an 11-dimensional spacetime, flanked on either side by two 10-dimensional membranes, or branes, colorfully dubbed "end of the world" branes. One brane would have physical laws like our own universe. From there, … six of those 10 dimensions could be made extremely small, effectively hiding them from everyday view and leaving the traditional four dimensions of space and time. … By turning back the clock in string theory, they found that as our universal brane passed through its starting singularity in reverse, it went suddenly from a state of intense but finite heat and density to one that was cold, flat and mostly empty. In the process, it shed another kind of brane into the 11-dimensional gap. Run forward in time, the big bang appeared as nothing more than two branes smacking into each other like cymbals. They christened this process the ekpyrotic model, after the ancient Greek "conflagration" cosmology wherein the universe is born in and evolves from a fiery explosion. … the singularity could be interpreted as a collision be- tween the two "end of the world" branes, in which only the gap dimension separating them shrinks down to zero for an instant. … The pre-bang universe had to be dark, flat and infinite, seemingly by fiat. But why should it have begun in such a state? The answer, according to the latest work from Steinhardt and Turok, has to do with dark energy, the force that is driving the galaxies apart at ever-increasing speeds. Drained Branes – As the universe accelerates, it will be- come harder for light to travel between distant corners of space. Over time, galaxies will become isolated from their neigh- bors; stars will wink out; black holes will evaporate quan- tum mechanically into radiation; even that radiation will be diluted in a sea of space. The universe could end up much as the ekpyrotic model suggests it should appear before the big bang. … the dark energy, combined with the milder singularity of the ekpyrotic model, provides a tidy way of setting up a cyclic universe. Our brane and its counterpart would bounce off each other as usual, but instead of going their separate ways, they would smack each other again and again as if con- nected by a spring. This attractive force between branes would in fact be a special case of the kind of force that inflationary cos- mologies posit to explain the early universe’s blowup. The branes’ oscillating motion would work to pump … read more »
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– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – … 1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation? 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go? 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us? 4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain? 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing? 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts? 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us? ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net Pro-Humanist FREELOVER Daily http://freelover.home.att.net ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Lets not forget the god that made us was jehovah/yahweh.If you know about
gnosticism you will know what i’m on about…
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Morning Dan, I think we have to switch positions now, as a physist, I dont think philosopers should medel in the physical discription of the universe….lol Math is the only thing that will do the job. There is ’stuff’ we don’t know, but we do understand the basic structure, and workings of the universe. Electromagnetic, gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces…..that pretty much raps it up. Worrying about if there were 22 or 11 dimensions .0002 seconds after the big bang is interesting, but does not change the structure of the universe as we observe it today. Now on to arguing both sides….first as to open set, or closed set, we can only concern ourselves with our universe, it is all there is as far as we are concerned. It is unfair to throw in that there are infinite other universes…….since as you say then all is possible….. ahh but the catch 22 of you POV…. If there are infinite universes, and an open set with infinite possibilities, than there is a almost finite probablility or a God existing somewhere, no? Gotta get more coffee…
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Morning Dan, I think we have to switch positions now, as a physicist, I don’t think philosophers should meddle in the physical description of the universe….lol Math is the only thing that will do the job. There is ’stuff’ we don’t know, but we do understand the basic structure, and workings of the universe. Electromagnetic, gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces…..that pretty much raps it up. Worrying about if there were 22 or 11 dimensions .0002 seconds after the big bang is interesting, but does not change the structure of the universe as we observe it today. Now on to arguing both sides….first as to open set, or closed set, we can only concern ourselves with our universe, it is all there is as far as we are concerned. It is unfair to throw in that there are infinite other universes…….since as you say then all is possible…..
No, actually what I meant to say is that if the odds of something like "us" existing, ever, is present but much smaller than the all but infinite –if not infinite– opportunities for something like "us" to exist, then it’s all-but certain that something like "us" would exist, within a physical world, constrained by phys- ical law, at some point, and probable that multiple instances of something like "us" would exist over the endless sojourn throughout all that ever was, is, or ever will be … ahh but the catch 22 of you POV…. If there are infinite universes, and an open set with infinite possibilities, than there is a almost finite probability or a God existing somewhere, no?
The "open set" refers to the naturalistic physical cosmos of all that ever was, is, or ever will be. As to all its properties, that is yet unknown but is open to exploration and scientific theory, including that existing within the area of mathematics and that which is explorable within the areas of physical law. You’d have to define what you mean by "a God existing somewhere", as it appears that you’re saying that if the "open set" includes all that ever was, is, or ever will be, and if our particular uni- verse is not inclusive of all that ever was, is, or ever will be, that there must be a God in there somewhere, and I simply don’t follow your logic. Perhaps you’re trying to construct the odds of a God as being greater than zero, and then having God be a result of natural law, but most folks, while comfortable with the odds of a God being greater than zero, imagine God to actually be the creator of the physical world, an entity apart from the physical world, always existent, not a result of natural law, but instead, a part of supernatural omnipotence, quite a different conjecture altogether than are the odds of something like "us" existing, ever, within an "open set". The constraint of the "open set" is physical law, not unlimited possibilities for anything including that outside the scope of physical law (i.e., that which is called supernatural or make believe) actually existing. Something like "us", considered purely as a phys- ical construct, a result of a naturalistic cosmos, with limitations within the boundaries of physical law, a naturalistic entity, a reality, is an entirely different point of consideration than is some- thing like a God or a comic book character being real rather than imaginary … scientists have yet to find God existing anywhere other than in the ima- gination of the human brain. One suspects that the God concept is an outgrowth of our evolution and would be wise to consider the way in which the human brain was slowly turned on (through hundreds of millions of years of evolution) when viewed from the current position of the species, -and- the way in which the human brain of every surviving fertilized human egg is slowly turned on during gesta- tion, barely starting to work many weeks after con- ception, trying to make sense of its dark/mysterious/ wet world in which sounds and nourishment are its initial introduction to what will become, if it’s lucky, an exit through an incredibly tiny space into a myster- ious world in which large beings are scurrying about and babbling strange sounds that are much clearer now than they were back in the good ol’ wet womb days … and … ahhh, a nipple, must have nipple … hmmmmmmm, go(o)d … – - – Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net Pro-Humanist FREELOVER Daily http://freelover.home.att.net – - – – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Gotta get more coffee…
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Ok Dan, My heart is not in it, cause you are correct within the bounds of any rationl, logical, fact driven argument…… My right brain say, duh, of course…. But I still observe the universe in awe, and can not bring myself to accept that the fact that I am observing it is nothing more that a statistical fluke. Call it ego, huberus, or weakness that requires me to believe I am something more than a fluke of a temporary increase of entrophy. And I still maintain if there were no higher moral plane, then dog eat dog would be the norm, and I would take my neighbor’s wife, house and car if I could. Cause we are a creation of survival of the fittest, so what other basic rule should discribe our moral code. Due unto others as ….would be an antitisis to that which resulted in our existance.
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And I still maintain if there were no higher moral plane, then dog eat dog would be the norm, and I would take my neighbor’s wife, house and car if I could. Cause we are a creation of survival of the fittest, so what other basic rule should discribe our moral code.
"Survival of the fittest" can also mean survival of populations that work together and help each other. Humans behaving as you consider "fit" would not be able to live together, and if they don’t cooperate with one another their big brains don’t get them nearly as much survivability as if they do. Humans are smart enough to work together to organize a hunt. But if they were always mean to each other, or if they couldn’t trust each other enough to work together, they’d lose that survival edge. Humans are also smart enough to plan out sets of crops with staggered harvest times, so that when something becomes ripe, a whole bunch of people can go out and pick it, and a few weeks later something else becomes ripe. But if they didn’t work together, each individual person would be trying to do the harvest of his/her own field all alone, and they’d lose that survival edge. Ever see how wild dogs deal with a vicious dog in the pack? They’ll take its tantrums for a while, but sooner or later they have to get rid of it. Usually they get together and kill it. This is because the pack as a whole is more survivable without the antisocial one. This means the vicious dog actually has less survival odds than the "normal" dogs. And remember that little fish that eats the scum and food bits off the teeth of other fishes? It’s like the dentist of the deep. And the other fish get a bit of survival odds from *NOT* eating the dentist, even though they can. The point here is that survival of the *fittest* does not always mean survival of the greedy, antisocial, opportunistic, or likely-to-win-fights. It means survival of the ones who work best in the environment where they are, however they do it. Which includes cooperation, performing valuable services for others, and mutual support of others likely to reciprocate. Which, depending on how you see these things, may be just part of God’s plan for the world…. Ray
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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Ok Dan, My heart is not in it, cause you are correct within the bounds of any rational, logical, fact driven argument…… My right brain say, duh, of course…. But I still observe the universe in awe, and can not bring myself to accept that the fact that I am observing it is nothing more that a statistical fluke. Call it ego, hubris, or weakness that requires me to believe I am something more than a fluke of a temporary increase of entropy. And I still maintain if there were no higher moral plane, then dog eat dog would be the norm, and I would take my neighbor’s wife, house and car if I could. Cause we are a creation of survival of the fittest, so what other basic rule should describe our moral code. Due unto others as ….would be an antithesis to that which resulted in our existence.
In some recent threads in other newsgroups, Elizabeth Hubbell and G Riggs offered the following views … – - – begin excerpt – - – – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -} With respect, since humans are primates, it would seem pertinent that } primates just happen to be social animals. Their instinct to keep } everyone around them reasonably functional in the long haul is just as } strong as any drive to get ahead. I was struck by a recent posting from } a contributor to the talk.origins newsgroup. S/He signed her/himself } "eyelessgame". } } S/He addressed exactly this general question as cogently as anything } I’ve read on this matter: } } "Humans, like the other primates, are social animals. We are not } terribly strong or fast, nor are we armed or armored. Social animals } provide for one another; it is in their nature — their instinct — to } do so. Human societies with empathic individuals (to some extent at } least) have prospered better than societies with less empathic, more } selfish individuals. } } "Now, there’s a balance, because a certain level of competitiveness } gets a primate — particularly a male — better food and more } offspring, and also hones his hunting and fighting skills in a way } that benefits not only him but the rest of his tribe. So we inherit a } constant tension between two different positive survival traits: } selfishness and empathy. } } "The reasons that empathy has prospered as a trait are so basic and } obvious it’s hard to put them into words. You are more likely to } survive all sorts of hazards and hardships if you have trusted friends } and relatives whom you count on, and to whom you reciprocate when } they go through their own difficulty. (I go into more detail on the } related notion of altruism below.) This is a very positive survival } trait, and one we carry today. } } "Our innate moral sense is very similar to the innate moral sense of } chimpanzees, if you watch these close relatives of ours for a while. } They, like us, are smart enough to keep track of who treats them well } and who treats them badly, and to favor or ostracize accordingly. } This provides a powerful check on straightforward selfishness, because } ostracized primates tend to live short, unhappy, ill-fed, unreproduced } lives. } } "At the same time, some level of competitiveness is expected and } encouraged, from childhood on; the more aggressive males get extra } privileges, for example. Food is shared, but not necessarily shared } equally; chimps fight over larger pieces of scarce food, but some will } still take food to the loser to make sure he doesn’t starve. } } "One sees the same behaviors in our more successful societies today; a } balance between cooperation and competition seems to build societies } well, and it turns out that this is what we’ve evolved to do. (It’s a } fortunate coincidence that large societies can operate at least to } some extent the same way as small societies, or we’d have even more } trouble keeping nations together than we already have. Also, we’re } built to be xenophobic tribesmen, and we have to work *against* } xenophobia to prosper as a species today.) } } "I wrote the following in alt.atheism a few weeks ago, regarding } altruism, a related concept to morality and empathy… } } "Altruism, in the real world, has a number of different rationales. For } example: } – Expected nonphysical reward (afterlife, reincarnation, good karma) } – Peer accolade (I help others, and others thus treat me well) } – Habit (I help others because I have been taught to help others) } – Emotional reward (I help others because it feels good) } – Self-discipline (I help others, and thus better myself) } – Socialization (I help others because it is my responsibility to do } so as a member of my society) } } "Altruism has a number of known evolutionary advantages: } – Reciprocation (primates have for a long time been smart enough to } keep track of who’s generous and who’s stingy, and treat as } they are treated) } – Kin selection (self-sacrifice for offspring, siblings, cousins } furthers one’s genes) } – Kin protection (self-sacrifice for unrelated but trusted tribe } members leaves them alive to care for one’s relatives, } furthering one’s genes)" } } The full posting is viewable through Google at } } http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl304913544d&hl=en&selm=e707421e… } } G Riggs
- – - end excerpt – - – Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net
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"Survival of the fittest" can also mean survival of populations that work together and help each other.
Sort of, primates have societies based on a familiar group. So small groups work together to the benifit of the group, but also work together to ‘out do’ the neighboring group, so even with the acceptance of man as a social animial, it would be moraly valild for the US to go take the oil from the middle east if it could if only naturalistic law were the basis of our moral code. Let alone, leave the old out in the cold, kill the deformed babies, ..yada yada…. We have reversed evolution by protecting the sick, poor, inept, stupid, lazy….( i.e. Don’t use hair dryer in the shower stickers ) this is agains a naturalistic moral code, no?
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1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation? 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us? 4) Spare the children the pain? 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing?
What you have described are, no question, major problems to reconcile for those who hold a benevolent Judeo-Christian view of God with rationality not based on faith. Personally, I think we have been running around in circles for the past couple of hundred years in regards to religion. We accept certain things as given that trap us into assumptions that lead nowhere. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that God exists. Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Pantheistic, whatever. I suspect most people would agree that if there is a God, God doesn’t change. Nevertheless, our interpretations of the Bible, the Koran, and so on have changed radically over the past thousand or so years. So God isn’t changing – it’s our understanding of God. Science wasn’t much of an issue two thousand years ago because it was very anemic, and very few people had any real exposure to it. Science is an issue now, because it suggests things that contradict things claimed by many religions that saw their origin a thousand, two thousand, three thousand years ago. I think that religion, and a concept of God, still have very valid and very necessary roles to play in our lives, both personally and socially. I think that it is indeed possible to have religion and science be in accordance, but only to the extent that I or anyone else is willing to lay down some of our assumptions about what God "has to be". – andrea — ANDREA LABERTEAUX "Then, if you are part of the universe, the universe can, indeed, know things. We are the universe’s way of being conscious of itself. Your hand is a part of what you think of as you, but your hand is not, in itself, conscious of its own existence. Does a molecule know where it is supposed to go, how it is supposed to behave? Being requires neither consciousness nor awareness – only being." The Book of Heresies, 2-19 http://www.geocities.com/gretchen_911/
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Forgive me for top-posting, but it seems less offensive to make a short comment on a long quote this way, especially since I’m mostly quoting myself. I’m flattered that my essay seems to have struck a chord with several people. I don’t claim much originality except for the phrasing; the influences of Gould, Sagan, and Hofstadter are conscious, and many other influences are probably there and unconscious as well. (‘eyelessgame’ is my not-particularly-secret online alter ego; in real – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – In some recent threads in other newsgroups, Elizabeth Hubbell and G Riggs offered the following views … – - – begin excerpt – - – } With respect, since humans are primates, it would seem pertinent that } primates just happen to be social animals. Their instinct to keep } everyone around them reasonably functional in the long haul is just as } strong as any drive to get ahead. I was struck by a recent posting from } a contributor to the talk.origins newsgroup. S/He signed her/himself } "eyelessgame". } } S/He addressed exactly this general question as cogently as anything } I’ve read on this matter: } } "Humans, like the other primates, are social animals. We are not } terribly strong or fast, nor are we armed or armored. Social animals } provide for one another; it is in their nature — their instinct — to } do so. Human societies with empathic individuals (to some extent at } least) have prospered better than societies with less empathic, more } selfish individuals. } } "Now, there’s a balance, because a certain level of competitiveness } gets a primate — particularly a male — better food and more } offspring, and also hones his hunting and fighting skills in a way } that benefits not only him but the rest of his tribe. So we inherit a } constant tension between two different positive survival traits: } selfishness and empathy. } } "The reasons that empathy has prospered as a trait are so basic and } obvious it’s hard to put them into words. You are more likely to } survive all sorts of hazards and hardships if you have trusted friends } and relatives whom you count on, and to whom you reciprocate when } they go through their own difficulty. (I go into more detail on the } related notion of altruism below.) This is a very positive survival } trait, and one we carry today. } } "Our innate moral sense is very similar to the innate moral sense of } chimpanzees, if you watch these close relatives of ours for a while. } They, like us, are smart enough to keep track of who treats them well } and who treats them badly, and to favor or ostracize accordingly. } This provides a powerful check on straightforward selfishness, because } ostracized primates tend to live short, unhappy, ill-fed, unreproduced } lives. } } "At the same time, some level of competitiveness is expected and } encouraged, from childhood on; the more aggressive males get extra } privileges, for example. Food is shared, but not necessarily shared } equally; chimps fight over larger pieces of scarce food, but some will } still take food to the loser to make sure he doesn’t starve. } } "One sees the same behaviors in our more successful societies today; a } balance between cooperation and competition seems to build societies } well, and it turns out that this is what we’ve evolved to do. (It’s a } fortunate coincidence that large societies can operate at least to } some extent the same way as small societies, or we’d have even more } trouble keeping nations together than we already have. Also, we’re } built to be xenophobic tribesmen, and we have to work *against* } xenophobia to prosper as a species today.) } } "I wrote the following in alt.atheism a few weeks ago, regarding } altruism, a related concept to morality and empathy… } } "Altruism, in the real world, has a number of different rationales. For } example: } – Expected nonphysical reward (afterlife, reincarnation, good karma) } – Peer accolade (I help others, and others thus treat me well) } – Habit (I help others because I have been taught to help others) } – Emotional reward (I help others because it feels good) } – Self-discipline (I help others, and thus better myself) } – Socialization (I help others because it is my responsibility to do } so as a member of my society) } } "Altruism has a number of known evolutionary advantages: } – Reciprocation (primates have for a long time been smart enough to } keep track of who’s generous and who’s stingy, and treat as } they are treated) } – Kin selection (self-sacrifice for offspring, siblings, cousins } furthers one’s genes) } – Kin protection (self-sacrifice for unrelated but trusted tribe } members leaves them alive to care for one’s relatives, } furthering one’s genes)" } } The full posting is viewable through Google at } } http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl304913544d&hl=en&selm=e707421e… } } G Riggs – - – end excerpt – - – Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net
Response:
Forgive me for top-posting, but it seems less offensive to make a short comment on a long quote this way, especially since I’m mostly quoting myself. I’m flattered that my essay seems to have struck a chord with several people. I don’t claim much originality except for the phrasing; the influences of Gould, Sagan, and Hofstadter are conscious, and many other influences are probably there and unconscious as well. (‘eyelessgame’ is my not-particularly-secret online alter ego; in real
Thanks, Al (eyelessgame) – good stuff. -Dan Fake – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – In some recent threads in other newsgroups, Elizabeth Hubbell and G Riggs offered the following views … – - – begin excerpt – - – } With respect, since humans are primates, it would seem pertinent that } primates just happen to be social animals. Their instinct to keep } everyone around them reasonably functional in the long haul is just as } strong as any drive to get ahead. I was struck by a recent posting from } a contributor to the talk.origins newsgroup. S/He signed her/himself } "eyelessgame". } } S/He addressed exactly this general question as cogently as anything } I’ve read on this matter: } } "Humans, like the other primates, are social animals. We are not } terribly strong or fast, nor are we armed or armored. Social animals } provide for one another; it is in their nature — their instinct — to } do so. Human societies with empathic individuals (to some extent at } least) have prospered better than societies with less empathic, more } selfish individuals. } } "Now, there’s a balance, because a certain level of competitiveness } gets a primate — particularly a male — better food and more } offspring, and also hones his hunting and fighting skills in a way } that benefits not only him but the rest of his tribe. So we inherit a } constant tension between two different positive survival traits: } selfishness and empathy. } } "The reasons that empathy has prospered as a trait are so basic and } obvious it’s hard to put them into words. You are more likely to } survive all sorts of hazards and hardships if you have trusted friends } and relatives whom you count on, and to whom you reciprocate when } they go through their own difficulty. (I go into more detail on the } related notion of altruism below.) This is a very positive survival } trait, and one we carry today. } } "Our innate moral sense is very similar to the innate moral sense of } chimpanzees, if you watch these close relatives of ours for a while. } They, like us, are smart enough to keep track of who treats them well } and who treats them badly, and to favor or ostracize accordingly. } This provides a powerful check on straightforward selfishness, because } ostracized primates tend to live short, unhappy, ill-fed, unreproduced } lives. } } "At the same time, some level of competitiveness is expected and } encouraged, from childhood on; the more aggressive males get extra } privileges, for example. Food is shared, but not necessarily shared } equally; chimps fight over larger pieces of scarce food, but some will } still take food to the loser to make sure he doesn’t starve. } } "One sees the same behaviors in our more successful societies today; a } balance between cooperation and competition seems to build societies } well, and it turns out that this is what we’ve evolved to do. (It’s a } fortunate coincidence that large societies can operate at least to } some extent the same way as small societies, or we’d have even more } trouble keeping nations together than we already have. Also, we’re } built to be xenophobic tribesmen, and we have to work *against* } xenophobia to prosper as a species today.) } } "I wrote the following in alt.atheism a few weeks ago, regarding } altruism, a related concept to morality and empathy… } } "Altruism, in the real world, has a number of different rationales. For } example: } – Expected nonphysical reward (afterlife, reincarnation, good karma) } – Peer accolade (I help others, and others thus treat me well) } – Habit (I help others because I have been taught to help others) } – Emotional reward (I help others because it feels good) } – Self-discipline (I help others, and thus better myself) } – Socialization (I help others because it is my responsibility to do } so as a member of my society) } } "Altruism has a number of known evolutionary advantages: } – Reciprocation (primates have for a long time been smart enough to } keep track of who’s generous and who’s stingy, and treat as } they are treated) } – Kin selection (self-sacrifice for offspring, siblings, cousins } furthers one’s genes) } – Kin protection (self-sacrifice for unrelated but trusted tribe } members leaves them alive to care for one’s relatives, } furthering one’s genes)" } } The full posting is viewable through Google at } } http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl304913544d&hl=en&selm=e707421e… } } G Riggs – - – end excerpt – - – Dan Fake, Pro-Humanist FREELOVER http://danfake.home.att.net
Response:
… 1) Detail all knowledge, unashamedly, taking pride in his/its/her/their creation?
pride is a sin 2) Trip us out on heaven from the get go?
some people don’t want to be in heaven, God wouldn’t want that for us. 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us?
Make us Gods? There is only one God, theoretically there could be several "gods." I really don’t want that much responsibility or understanding right now. sounds like a pretty big ego trip though. 4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain?
pain is not bad, mkay. 7) Communicate with us, like, for real?
I don’t know. wow, and I still believe. odd huh? Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing?
some people aren’t ready or don’t want to. 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts?
thats why they call it faith, it is a gift from the holy spirit, and a bit of the ole catch 22 thingy. 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us?
I think he is, really i do.
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…
<snip 3) Make us Gods – after all, it is a vast infinite cosmos, so what’s so hard about slicing off a universe for each of us? Make us Gods? There is only one God, theoretically there could be several "gods." I really don’t want that much responsibility or understanding right now. sounds like a pretty big ego trip though.
Gutsy words for a coward. 4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain? pain is not bad, mkay.
Good, you can have mine, I don’t want it anymore. 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? I don’t know. wow, and I still believe. odd huh?
He does with me, but I am certifyable ! <snip 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us? I think he is, really i do.
Me too
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4) Spare the children the pain? 5) Spare the good the pain? 6) Spare us all the pain? 7) Communicate with us, like, for real? Deal with us as if we were worth dealing with, rather than in a manner equivalent to God not existing? 9) Act in a manner distinctly different from the non-existent manner in which he/it/she/they acts? 10) Act in as decent and kind and caring and genuine and real and open and honest and forthright a manner as the best among us?
No polemic in what I say but: Wouldn’t life be a bit boring if one morning you go out of your house saying to yourself "Wow man! I really enjoy to be free to believe what I want to believe" and then you look the sky and see an enormous face with a white beard (usually man imagine God like this) who tells you "Gotcha! You wanted to believe that I didn’t exist but here I am!" What would be of your freeodm? That wouldn’t be a God… that would be a dictator. Not a Father, but a divine Mussolini. If there is a God of course is someone who loves us. And since He loves us He let us free to believe what we want. And He stays hidden in the story of our lifes ready to come out at the very moment we say "All this pain makes no sense. If is there any God he must explain me all this shit!" God shows up in front of the man who has seen he is not god, and whose brain can not make sense on pain and life itself. If we were compelled to believe in Him what our life was for? Being like robots? You believe in God just when you see im though right? What’s the deal then? Call him. Well… Try to call him. Put him on trial and ask him to explain you why there is pain in the world. What do you have to lose? If he dosen’t exist you will have spoken to the walls. bye bye
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<Snip God shows up in front of the man who has seen he is not god, and whose brain can not make sense on pain and life itself. If we were compelled to believe in Him what our life was for? Being like robots? You believe in God just when you see im though right? What’s the deal then? Call him. Well… Try to call him. Put him on trial and ask him to explain you why there is pain in the world. What do you have to lose? If he dosen’t exist you will have spoken to the walls. bye bye
____ Speaking to the walls is bad for mental health. For example, people who worship idols come to believe in said idols regardless of what the idols are.
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Well you will be speaking to walls if god doesn’t exist. And if God doesn’t exist frankly I find life wothless to be lived. But this is my opinion. bye – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – <Snip God shows up in front of the man who has seen he is not god, and whose brain can not make sense on pain and life itself. If we were compelled to believe in Him what our life was for? Being like robots? You believe in God just when you see im though right? What’s the deal then? Call him. Well… Try to call him. Put him on trial and ask him to explain you why there is pain in the world. What do you have to lose? If he dosen’t exist you will have spoken to the walls. bye bye ____ Speaking to the walls is bad for mental health. For example, people who worship idols come to believe in said idols regardless of what the idols are.
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– k i t z – alt.food.sugar-cereals loves you. http://spinning_plates.tripod.com 
I was going to stop there, but you know, I recognize in myself also, a 