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Posted

After the the rule of not killing another, at least as one of the 10 commandments, the suggestions of killing another person for any reason is a contradiction to that rule. That pricipal invalidates all of the texts stating to kill others who are not part of team-X.

 

You will find a more accurate translation of this commandment is "Thou shalt not murder". Why is it that Yahweh and his agents on Earth are under no such restriction?

Posted

Htvfd460, you have described the commonality between most religions as being kind to one another and grateful... Bill and Ted have summarized this into a more succinct form than the heavyweight indoctrination model of most religions and don't require you to have faith in something unprovable in the bargain. Have you come to the conclusion that religion is unnecessary on your own? Have you answered your own question? Bonus points for George Carlin appearing in religious allegories as Rufus.

He was good in Dogma too.

"Be excellent to each other and party on dudes" the church of Bill and Ted has just one commandment. George Carlin has 3 commandments: Be respectful and faithful, don't kill, and keep your religion to to your self.

I only had gone to church a handful of times. I had started questioning it before I started dating a pastor's daughter. That made for some interesting conversations. If there is a hell then I'm definitely going after what she and I did the last time I was in a church, and I still haven't been struck by Thor's lightning.

 

But my main interest in starting this subject thread was more about the transition of life, and if the deity is a misconception. I see my mistakes on the point to point basis, except for if God may have been misinterpreted from the start. It seems to me that the perception of God as a deity is throwing off my suggestion of him being a bag of dried up bones or just the first human DNA.

Posted

You will find a more accurate translation of this commandment is "Thou shalt not murder". Why is it that Yahweh and his agents on Earth are under no such restriction?

Was he a deity from the get go, or was he a person before he was transistioned into one? And does the Religion he is referenced in have the rule to not kill? If there is a commandment to not kill, then the agents are not abiding that rule. That would make the rule foulable and contradict itself.

Posted

Was he a deity from the get go, or was he a person before he was transistioned into one? And does the Religion he is referenced in have the rule to not kill? If there is a commandment to not kill, then the agents are not abiding that rule. That would make the rule foulable and contradict itself.

 

So if the bible contradicts itself and the bible is written from divine inspiration what does that say about the divinity?

 

Deuteronomy 17:1-5 - commands stoning to death of non-believers.

Deteronomy 5:17 - "You shall not murder".  

 

It's the same f-ing book within the bible!!!

Posted

Was he a deity from the get go, or was he a person before he was transistioned into one? And does the Religion he is referenced in have the rule to not kill? If there is a commandment to not kill, then the agents are not abiding that rule. That would make the rule foulable and contradict itself.

 

He's a man-made construct, who started on one of the many gods of the mountains to becoming the one true god four thousand years ago. There's a difference between murder and killing and that's the element of justification. Murder is unjustified, and it is the priests of Yahweh that get to interpret justification.

Posted

 

It's the same f-ing book within the bible!!!

From what I have found the bible consists of different stories over a range of about 1500 years, and 40 writers. The Vatican has cherry picked the stories and omitted the most outlandish, and contradicting texts.

Like reading the fantastic four comic books (there are a couple different series and writers have changed many times) and then watching the latest movie about it. Certain things are Altered because people may not like it, or it just doesn't make the new script exciting enough to get as many people into the theater. In the comic books Sue and Jonny storm are siblings, in the movie it's blatantly obvious that they aren't since the actor for the human torch is black and the invisible woman is white. It's the same title as fantastic four, but the origins are different and the story is altered from the original.

Posted

From what I have found the bible consists of different stories over a range of about 1500 years, and 40 writers. The Vatican has cherry picked the stories and omitted the most outlandish, and contradicting texts.

Like reading the fantastic four comic books (there are a couple different series and writers have changed many times) and then watching the latest movie about it. Certain things are Altered because people may not like it, or it just doesn't make the new script exciting enough to get as many people into the theater. In the comic books Sue and Jonny storm are siblings, in the movie it's blatantly obvious that they aren't since the actor for the human torch is black and the invisible woman is white. It's the same title as fantastic four, but the origins are different and the story is altered from the original.

First up you should review a little bit of history. The bible was not put together by The Vatican, the concept of the Vatican didn't even exist back when the bible was compiled which was in 3 councils: Laodicea 363AD, Hippo 393AD and Carthage 397AD.

 

Second up, while the bible was composed by compiling different books by different writers, the actual books themselves (especially the ones in the old testament) are mostly single sourced and argumented as having been passed down through divine inspiration from god to prophet. When you find contradicting information within the same book, your argument of "cpmpilation" and "variance on a given theme" doesn't quite hold up.

 

I guess at this point I'd ask you to restate your purpose/position in this debate because this is tangent number three I feel we have engaged, and I don't even know what we're discussing anymore.

Posted

Vahleeb

To address my statement of: "From what I have found the bible consists of different stories over a range of about 1500 years, and 40 writers. The Vatican has cherry picked the stories and omitted the most outlandish, and contradicting texts." Here are citations to provide a background of what I mean. Below the citations is a correction/ clarification of my statement.

 

Multiple books written by 40 authors as

http://www.truthnet.org/Bible-Origins/4_How_was_Bible_written/

 

The Vatican does alter the bible

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/11/books.humanities

 

The bible has been misinterpreted, and was altered with added phrases that were not in the original texts. (This alteration is more recent.)

http://www.gotquestions.org/missing-verses.html

 

The bible has been comprised lacking the omitted stories. And the Pope/pontiff (before the Vatican existed as a papal palace) approved omitting some books of the bible.

http://www.catholicbible101.com/thebible73or66books.htm

 

I will attempt to fix my error in saying it was the "Vatican" that altered the bible because it's not a place, it's the people who altered it. - Starting from the house of Fausta later becoming the apostolic palace of the Lateran then going to the palace of the Vatican. The locations were/are the apostolic palaces/papal palaces. The bible has been altered by these palaces as the group of people who made the decisions to omit books from the bible.

 

With that addressed, the title of this topic is asking if science is the reason that people believe that God and or heaven/hell don't exist. The first paragraph is linking science and Christianity together as a relationship. The second provides how the relationship between the religion and science have been oppositional. The fourth paragraph is about continuing to provide conceptualization over time to the individuals, then I shifted to questioning if today the religion is even following the original understanding of what God was. Today God is considered a deity with impossible powers, but going back to the original term that has been translated and evolved in today's definition, we are probably wrong in what the terminology of what a God was back then.

 

The hawking paragraph has been addressed, and my theory behind it was just confirmation bias.

 

Next came proven scientific theories that may or may not prove heaven/hell. This is to provide reason that science isn't against the religious concept, but that it's still testing

It as a possibility (even though Christianity has been against science for all this time, science has not given the cold shoulder to religion)

Then I contrasted the scientific Alpha and Omega reference of the universe to the biblical reference of God as alpha and omega. The beginning/origin, and the unknown end/the infinite, to support that alpha and omega has not changed as a term.

 

(The LHC paragraph has a flaw that I just caught. The God particle, or Higgs has been proven as a fact. "The *hardon* particle" is not what I meant to say. I find that to be a humorous auto-correct)

 

The LHC has proven that the God (alpha and omega) particle exists, which was termed that way by quantum physicists. It's only one example that has been proven as an advancement in science. But what's more important is that Quantum physicists and mechanics want to advance beyond that first particle.

 

I then presented my own theory of what could be the transition from life to the afterlife that I have imagined based on what I know of sciences. It's something I like to ponder. Christianity would call my free thoughts blasphemy.

 

I then summarized the major points from my post where science could prove God heaven/hell in a realistic format that isn't a fisherman's story.

 

Has science disproven God and or the afterlife? The irony of the question is that religion has been the one at the forefront of disproving God and the afterlife by hindering science's attempt to actually find proof.

It's almost like a crusade against science but science is actually the Allie.

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Posted

My problem with this type of question is that God, religion, spirituality, heaven, hell, etc. are not part of the material world. Science can only explain that which exists in the physical world. That's the purpose and limit of science.

 

To me, the immaterial world is not something magical or mystical. It's just not fully observable through science. It's like saying "show me the images that were in your dream last night." Science might observe electrical activity in your brain, but it can't show you the pink elephant that was in your dream. The pink elephant didn't exist in the material world. It only existed in thought, which doesn't have a physical form.

 

I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself very well. Anyway, just thoughts.

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Posted

For me, the challenge is on conveying what I am questioning as a thought. So that I can express it with out the need for translation, and I have obviously been failing at that thus far.

I'm not looking at religion as how it has been defined and perceived as a theology. I'm more focused on the domino effect that it has triggered by not creating an alliance with science.

 

The premiss of what I'm trying to get discussion on is that religion (Christianity as the example) has been the main opposition to science's attempt to approach validation of the 'mystic' attributes behind the theology.

The things I mull over for fun like parallel universes being something that could represent what heaven and hell are, are only an example. Someone could come along and say that dreams are a better example of heaven and hell. But I'm providing these as "theories" which if studied by science would be tested logically via the scientific method. I'm making an attempt to provide a hypothetical theory that could be approached for study. One that a scientist that wouldn't be hesitant to attempt based on the backlash of religions implementing force on him or her. That also includes public ridicule, because some people would present the possibility of a violent opposition on what they have been led to perceive as unreasonable by the more modern religious teachings (from the times of Newton to Einstein and maybe today).

So what I think, is that religion is at fault for creating an environment where science has been painted as an evil has turned out to work against religion's attempt to become universal in acceptance. So to speak, their opposition to science is the pinochle act that drove the first nail into the coffin.

Posted

Was he a deity from the get go, or was he a person before he was transistioned into one? 

In Mormonism God was once a man and men are Gods in embryo.

Posted

To me, the immaterial world is not something magical or mystical. It's just not fully observable through science. It's like saying "show me the images that were in your dream last night." Science might observe electrical activity in your brain, but it can't show you the pink elephant that was in your dream. The pink elephant didn't exist in the material world. It only existed in thought, which doesn't have a physical form.

Sure it does. Your every thought is biochemicals and electricity, both of which are comprised of matter and energy.

Posted

I think it's more about the thought of the pink elephant being tangible. At that point we can't remove the elephant from the brain and put it on a scale to weigh it or touch it. But it can be observed via sensors and interpretive software to make an image on a screen as a 2d construct.

The pink elephant holds the same value as Schrödinger's cat in that it existed in the brain as a thought but it was never really there. It was just a concept that came to fruition from the biochemistry and neurons and electrical pulses of his mind then later was transcended to paper and verbal communications. Now everybody can make the cat exist as a thought of their own mind.

Today science Is able to observe the results of the biochemistry and interactions between neurons in a person's brain, and interpreting them via computer code to construct them as images. The objects as thoughts have no measurable weight, don't interact with other forces, and do not exist as a physical form. Now science is observing objects in people's brains that don't physically exist.

The pink elephant isn't physically inside of the brain, but science has found a way to see this pink elephant and prove that it is there. and can manifest it into an image.

 

http://news.berkeley.edu/2011/09/22/brain-movies/

 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/breakthrough-could-enable-others-to-watch-your-dreams-and-memories-video/

Posted

You will find a more accurate translation of this commandment is "Thou shalt not murder". Why is it that Yahweh and his agents on Earth are under no such restriction?

 

So if the bible contradicts itself and the bible is written from divine inspiration what does that say about the divinity?

 

Deuteronomy 17:1-5 - commands stoning to death of non-believers.

Deteronomy 5:17 - "You shall not murder".  

 

It's the same f-ing book within the bible!!!

The explanation I've heard:

 

It's not murder if it's justifiable homicide.  Or in war.

 

Also, if God tells you to do something but you see it as a violation of his previous commandments, which do you follow?  The christian answer seems to be "the second wasn't really God's voice."  The muslim is "the latest revelation from Allah."

Posted

Vahleeb

To address my statement of: "From what I have found the bible consists of different stories over a range of about 1500 years, and 40 writers. The Vatican has cherry picked the stories and omitted the most outlandish, and contradicting texts." Here are citations to provide a background of what I mean. Below the citations is a correction/ clarification of my statement.

 

Multiple books written by 40 authors as

http://www.truthnet.org/Bible-Origins/4_How_was_Bible_written/

 

The Vatican does alter the bible

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/sep/11/books.humanities

 

The bible has been misinterpreted, and was altered with added phrases that were not in the original texts. (This alteration is more recent.)

http://www.gotquestions.org/missing-verses.html

 

The bible has been comprised lacking the omitted stories. And the Pope/pontiff (before the Vatican existed as a papal palace) approved omitting some books of the bible.

http://www.catholicbible101.com/thebible73or66books.htm

 

I will attempt to fix my error in saying it was the "Vatican" that altered the bible because it's not a place, it's the people who altered it. - Starting from the house of Fausta later becoming the apostolic palace of the Lateran then going to the palace of the Vatican. The locations were/are the apostolic palaces/papal palaces. The bible has been altered by these palaces as the group of people who made the decisions to omit books from the bible.

 

With that addressed, the title of this topic is asking if science is the reason that people believe that God and or heaven/hell don't exist. The first paragraph is linking science and Christianity together as a relationship. The second provides how the relationship between the religion and science have been oppositional. The fourth paragraph is about continuing to provide conceptualization over time to the individuals, then I shifted to questioning if today the religion is even following the original understanding of what God was. Today God is considered a deity with impossible powers, but going back to the original term that has been translated and evolved in today's definition, we are probably wrong in what the terminology of what a God was back then.

 

The hawking paragraph has been addressed, and my theory behind it was just confirmation bias.

 

Next came proven scientific theories that may or may not prove heaven/hell. This is to provide reason that science isn't against the religious concept, but that it's still testing

It as a possibility (even though Christianity has been against science for all this time, science has not given the cold shoulder to religion)

Then I contrasted the scientific Alpha and Omega reference of the universe to the biblical reference of God as alpha and omega. The beginning/origin, and the unknown end/the infinite, to support that alpha and omega has not changed as a term.

 

(The LHC paragraph has a flaw that I just caught. The God particle, or Higgs has been proven as a fact. "The *hardon* particle" is not what I meant to say. I find that to be a humorous auto-correct)

 

The LHC has proven that the God (alpha and omega) particle exists, which was termed that way by quantum physicists. It's only one example that has been proven as an advancement in science. But what's more important is that Quantum physicists and mechanics want to advance beyond that first particle.

 

I then presented my own theory of what could be the transition from life to the afterlife that I have imagined based on what I know of sciences. It's something I like to ponder. Christianity would call my free thoughts blasphemy.

 

I then summarized the major points from my post where science could prove God heaven/hell in a realistic format that isn't a fisherman's story.

 

Has science disproven God and or the afterlife? The irony of the question is that religion has been the one at the forefront of disproving God and the afterlife by hindering science's attempt to actually find proof.

It's almost like a crusade against science but science is actually the Allie.

Thank you for that long summary Htvfd460,

 

I have some corrections to the first part of the comment, though:

 

40 authors wrote the 66 books, but each book has its own author. Even the article you linked to states that Moses wrote 5 of the books and debunks some German dude's attempt to postulate that jews didn't know how to write back then therefore it must have been orally transmitted.

 

Now to the point of your summary:

 

I can go along with your contention for a while, that the book was altered through translations or specific alterations and that it may have caused us to end up with a perception of what the book describes as god that is very different than what the concept was at the time of inception. However there are some capabilities of god that we can depict from the bible that cannot be mistranslated and altered (because they constitute the driving points of the entire stories without which the stories themselves have no reason for having been written). Here's a few of them:

 

- God created the world  out of nothing  ( - put down on resume world creation ).

- God talked to a lot of people in the old testament (from Adam to Noah to Moses) ( - put down ability to interact with humans via language ) 

- God flooded the entire Earth, killed off all the humans save Russell Crowe's family ( - put down the ability to make it rain, like really rain )

- God razed off the face of the Earth two entire cities by fire because he was morally offended ( - put down a short temper and the ability to drop the equivalent of nukes )

- God, on a bet, ruined some dude's life by killing his family, ruining his business, burning down his home and infecting him with leprosy, all so he can prove to Satan just what true love is ( - put down psycho, and amazing telekinetic abilities )

- God cast a spell influencing the brains of all the humans of the world to stop speaking the same language ( - put down ass-kicking mentalist, with the capacity to reach EVERYONE before TV was invented )

- God created life (no biggie, he's done it before) inside a woman's womb and called it his son ( - put down the ability to breed with humans )

- God had that son die in a brutal fashion to "give humans access to his kingdom", access that he had previously removed through a verbal command ( - did i already put down psycho?)

 

With all these friggin' abilities that god displayed throughout the ages, he doesn't have the ability to ensure a proper translation or even a proper description of himself? Let's not forget, we're all speaking different languages because of him, in the first place!! At this point I have to stop going along with you, because you can say the bible is wrong, but the process you put forward for it being wrong still doesn't eliminate all of these supernatural capabilities of god, which, if he had, then the bible would have to be right in its entirety.

 

There's a sequence in this video where Stefan addresses this point, I highly recommend you watch it, because I can't do it justice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHDHGwmm1iU

 

You may choose to abandon the bible completely in the continuing of your discussion, but then you have to come forward with a definition of god that has absolutely no reference to the texts in the bible and we can continue the conversation in that direction, because if you link to even one quote from the bible then you have to explain first why that quote is real and the rest of the book is not when it's referencing the same god, and, on top of it, you have to prove that theory, which I can say for sure that you can't.

 

Going over your summary, I'd like to point out that physics scientists aren't exactly cunning linguists and if you couple that to the need for sensationalism, you will get plenty of "justification" for the usage of misappropriated terms. It doesn't amount to jack shit, sorry. This is in reference to science and heaven and hell. Also you can stick to the whole bible as a source for reference (which defeats itself for the reasons explained above) or you can discard it entirely, there is no middle ground. Thusly, if you want to debate the concepts of heaven and hell the onus of the definition falls on you.

 

I have to say that I missed what your theory on the transition from life to afterlife is, so if you wanna refresh me on that, I'd be much appreciating, but if any of the concepts involve afterlife different than being dead and non-existant, I'd say you just set another goal for yourself in defining something and putting forward a theory on how and why it works that way, then the burden of proof falls on top of that.

 

And then there's this:

 

"Has science disproven God and or the afterlife?"

 

Plenty of people here have gone in and told you that's not what science does. It's simply the wrong language to use. Science could only prove God or the afterlife (you even hint to this yourself), only if these concepts weren't self contradictory to begin with. But since they are, it's Logic that disproves them not "science". It's literally like asking "has science disproven that 2+2 equals 5?" (long live the stereotypes!). Science cannot disprove a false statement, that's Logic's job. I suggest you give a listen to the following FDR podcasts: 377, 378, 379, 380, and 383 to get a better grasp what what science and epistemology is for. These are also available on YouTube in Stefan's "An introduction to philosophy" playlist and they are videos 2-3-4-5-6. Video 1 is just a summary of the concepts discussed throughout the playlist and it is done at a much later date.

 

 

 

Now, since the topic of afterlife is what I have engaged you on in the first place, I will try to put forward a theory that I find sufficient in order to explain the belief that some people have in the afterlife and in the genesis of the concept of afterlife in the first place:

 

Humans are the only beings on Earth that are endowed with the capability of conceptualising things. Here's a video in which Stefan is addressing that topic with a caller: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQHCVqZHBdw   (I think that self-awareness and the power to work with concepts is intrinsically linked but I'm not aware of any studies on this issue, in any case that's just a tangent). Once we can work with concepts, it's only a matter of time before we have to deal internally with the fact that we will die. The unavoidability of death and the finality of it is the single most destructive thing that can haunt the human mind and, for the most part, humans have not processed this psychological trauma. Deflection/avoidance/denial are basic coping mechanisms that are employed by everyone when dealing with any kind of psychological trauma. It stands to reason that these mechanisms would also be applied by the very first humans ever to realise the unavoidability of their own deaths. (The existence of coping mechanisms is not dependant on technology/society or anything that we have now that was unavailable to the initial homo sapiens. They are a product of the psychology of self and if you have reason enough to work with concepts, you have self-awareness.) The concept of a "living afterlife" is, in fact, the denial of death. In particular the denial of the finality (non-existance) of death which is what the source of the trauma is in the first place.

 

Funny enough the same line of reasoning can be followed in regards to religion.

 

All superstitions are a set of irrationally prescribed behaviours that are to be followed each in order to avoid a respective undesired consequence. The undesired consequence in this case is the stoppage of existing, the irrationally prescribed behaviour is all the religious guidelines. This is a deflection/avoidance mechanism that enables the person to shift focus from the undesired future consequence to the present obedience to the prescribed behaviour as a result obscuring and relieving the fear from their mind.

 

Occam's razor! I don't think you can find a simpler explanation for the genesis of the concept of afterlife and for the genesis of religion, but if you do, please share it with me as I'm always open to a better idea (or at least I like to think that I am).

Posted

The explanation I've heard:

 

It's not murder if it's justifiable homicide.  Or in war.

 

Also, if God tells you to do something but you see it as a violation of his previous commandments, which do you follow?  The christian answer seems to be "the second wasn't really God's voice."  The muslim is "the latest revelation from Allah."

 

The fact that they don't believe in me makes it justifiable. I must have missed that part of the bible. That is one big-ass word there and you have been insulted to have been given it as an "explanation". It's also an insult to the word "explanation", but that's another story.

 

But from a term of what to follow, both christians and muslims are in agreement. It's the latest revelation that they follow. It was Jesus that preached peace and the old testament that preached killings.

Posted

It's not murder if it's justifiable homicide.  Or in war.

 

My point is that "murder" is defined as unjustified killing, and that the deconstruction of the commandment is understanding who gets to decide if a killing is justified. Yahweh and his earthly representatives get to decide what is murder or not, to their own benefit.

Posted

For a hypothesis to be falsiable there has to be something that can't happen if it's true, or something that must happen if it's true.  With God you can't have that.  No matter what test you apply either or any result could happen if God wanted it to happen.  Now you might think that this would allow God to be demonstrable if he wanted to be.  But any test for God would in fact be a test for a being with at least a certain amount of power and/or knowledge.  There might be a being with that amount of power and knowledge who isn't God.  Even if you were to ask God to make  mile high letters of fire spelling "Yahweh is the one true God" in the sky, what would that prove?  At best that a being or beings who can do exists and he/they wants you to believe in your God.  That doesn't prove he is that God or that that God exists.

God will always be unfalsifable, by design.

Mr. Diety did a good video on this.

Posted

For a hypothesis to be falsiable there has to be something that can't happen if it's true, or something that must happen if it's true.  With God you can't have that.  No matter what test you apply either or any result could happen if God wanted it to happen.  Now you might think that this would allow God to be demonstrable if he wanted to be.  But any test for God would in fact be a test for a being with at least a certain amount of power and/or knowledge.  There might be a being with that amount of power and knowledge who isn't God.  Even if you were to ask God to make  mile high letters of fire spelling "Yahweh is the one true God" in the sky, what would that prove?  At best that a being or beings who can do exists and he/they wants you to believe in your God.  That doesn't prove he is that God or that that God exists.

 

God will always be unfalsifable, by design.

 

Mr. Diety did a good video on this.

 

My sentience is unfalsifiable to you, does that mean you should ignore my sentience?

 

If I fall down and stop talking, it might be that I'm dead, or it might be I just don't want to talk to you right now.

 

At a certain point in life, faith is inevitable.

Posted

Sure it does. Your every thought is biochemicals and electricity, both of which are comprised of matter and energy.

Yes, you're right. I considered it immaterial because I couldn't imagine how science could ever unravel and observe such a complex thing as a mental image or concept. I suppose it's improper to talk about it as immaterial just because current science can't do it though.

 

I think it's more about the thought of the pink elephant being tangible. At that point we can't remove the elephant from the brain and put it on a scale to weigh it or touch it. But it can be observed via sensors and interpretive software to make an image on a screen as a 2d construct.

That's very interesting. In a world where you had a computer that was capable of recording and then displaying a thought, maybe you would have the conditions to "prove" God. It seems to me that it's much more complex than "seeing" though. A mental picture can be tied to your values, your memories, your associations, and your emotions. To understand a thought the way someone else does, you have to have all of that context.
Posted

Vahleeb- in response to your thorough retort. What is your stance on religion? You know a lot about the subject. But is it voodoo or is it real to you? I'm on the cups in some ways, but I don't think that religion knows better than science (which evolves unlike religion).

 

 

Of all those books they are combined into the rolling papers at the knees of those sitting in their own pew. They pick it up read a few lines and feel good that they have practiced 2nd grade level reading aloud to their peers. Either soft or hard cover, it's one book that is held in hand and abided or they will suffer.

 

I did come up with a God that isn't referenced via the bible in that he is just a person who represents the alpha, or first human to be a DNA farm. I don't think God would be the equivalent to Stalin or Hitler because they thought more of themselves over the people rather than just being the baby daddy.

 

We know that Christians and Jews were not the first people on earth. The Chinese calendar goes way back before Jesus could have been a head board stain. And while on the subject, how gross is it that Adam an eve as grandparents have incest grand babies?

 

Back to a reference to the bible and describing God, the common concept is that God is the creator of something or all. That would indicate he or she or Jenner is the first to come out and say: yup I did all that. Well as humans the first one would be able to make that claim. But they are dead now. Chilling in the past doing little to effect us now, other than being the first sperm donor.

 

Heaven and hell are considered an after life. Hahaha! Like nonexistence is better than hell? Who wants to just poof!, never exist, not have an effect on the future or honor the past? At best we will be rotten meat for the worms to shit out. Then later we will be a rose! Funny how Christians use flower bouquets on a grave as a presentation to the rotting corps. Look into the Black Death on this one. Smelling posies might stop the bubonic plague but its also a better smell than a pile of corpses oozing glandular infections into the sweet country air.

 

The goal to the afterlife is just setting a standard for one's self to reach for what is impossible. If it comes true than its pretty cool. If not, at least you tried while others just conformed to believing in what they are told to believe.

 

What science does is follow the burden of proof. Ironically religions have been the biggest opposition to proving wtf is going on.

 

What science does is follow the burden of proof. Ironically religions have been the biggest opposition to proving wtf is going on.

 

There is more but this is more wandering than staying on the path of the subject matter that is the title of the post.

That's very interesting. In a world where you had a computer that was capable of recording and then displaying a thought, maybe you would have the conditions to "prove" God. It seems to me that it's much more complex than "seeing" though. A mental picture can be tied to your values, your memories, your associations, and your emotions. To understand a thought the way someone else does, you have to have all of that context.

That is more a reference to showing a dream to a 3rd person perspective.

Dreams are simple since all involved are the construct of the dreamer's interpretation. If I dreamed of you, the form of you would be as I understand, and not your actual thoughts and consciousness. Dreams are complicated when an outsider of the psyche interjects with their own psychology.

 

What I was attempting to say was that if I was thinking of a car, you can't cut my skull open and pull out that car and drive it around. At the best you can see it on TV as I see it. That doesn't count into the value of gravity or actuall molecules defining a weight.

 

I can also dream of a car turning into an urn. That won't happen in reality. But how is it that electricity and liquids in the brain can transcend to a computer screen? You can't smell, touch, or hear it. But you can see that it is there in my brain.

Previously the best way to convey a thought was via art, music,communication, or just making it. Now it's possible to think it and make it real via a computer algorithm.

Does that transition from a brain to a screen make it really exist? Or does that just prove that we can study things in a new way?

Posted

My sentience is unfalsifiable to you, does that mean you should ignore my sentience?

 

If I fall down and stop talking, it might be that I'm dead, or it might be I just don't want to talk to you right now.

 

At a certain point in life, faith is inevitable.

I can establish that you do things that sentient beings do.  While it's possible that you're actually a robot with a set of responses preprogrammed by a time traveler, a brain scan should reveal the truth.  Even if I can't scan your brain saying that you're a time-traveler-constructed robot is the more extraordinary claim, so it requires extraordinary evidence while the reverse does not, it being less extraordinary.  There is no more extraordinary claim than an omnipotent being.

Posted

I can establish that you do things that sentient beings do.  While it's possible that you're actually a robot with a set of responses preprogrammed by a time traveler, a brain scan should reveal the truth.  Even if I can't scan your brain saying that you're a time-traveler-constructed robot is the more extraordinary claim, so it requires extraordinary evidence while the reverse does not, it being less extraordinary.  There is no more extraordinary claim than an omnipotent being.

 

The claim that something as complex as the Universe came into being out of nothing, for no reason, is in the running.

 

Saying that me being a sentient, sapient being is less extraordinary than me being an automaton is so because of your paradigm.  A primitive tribesman might say that you denying rocks and trees sentience is more extraordinary than believing the obvious truth that everything is ensouled.  I think you need something more than gauging extraordinariness in order to decide on a paradigm, because the paradigm is what decides the gauge.

Posted

Donnadogsoth, on 13 May 2016 - 10:38 AM, said:
> The claim that something as complex as the Universe came into being out of nothing, for no reason, is in the running.

 

No it's not.  Nobody claimed that.  But even if they did it would still be less extraordinary than a being that could make the universe come into existance.

 

> Saying that me being a sentient, sapient being is less extraordinary than me being an automaton is so because of your paradigm.  A

> primitive tribesman might say that you denying rocks and trees sentience is more extraordinary than believing the obvious truth that

> everything is ensouled. 

 

Except that of course we see no evidence that rocks have souls.

 

>I think you need something more than gauging extraordinariness in order to decide on a paradigm, because the paradigm is what

> decides the gauge.

 

I have something to guage extraordinariness, it's called reason and evidence.

Posted

Yes, you're right. I considered it immaterial because I couldn't imagine how science could ever unravel and observe such a complex thing as a mental image or concept. I suppose it's improper to talk about it as immaterial just because current science can't do it though.

 

That's very interesting. In a world where you had a computer that was capable of recording and then displaying a thought, maybe you would have the conditions to "prove" God. It seems to me that it's much more complex than "seeing" though. A mental picture can be tied to your values, your memories, your associations, and your emotions. To understand a thought the way someone else does, you have to have all of that context.

 

If something is not observable (such as a concept), then it is just a thought. It cannot be proven to exists because it, by definition, doesn't.

 

If god were real, he isn't just a concept. It would require changes in empirical reality for 'god' to be observable.

 

 

Posted

Vahleeb- in response to your thorough retort. What is your stance on religion? You know a lot about the subject. But is it voodoo or is it real to you? I'm on the cups in some ways, but I don't think that religion knows better than science (which evolves unlike religion).

 

 

I thought I explained my stance.

Religion (the actual discipline) is nothing more than a superstition and as such it's irrationally prescribed behaviour to be followed in order to distract one from the fear that death is final.

 

Religious people (and here I include all religions) - the followers - are simply people who refuse to deal with their own deaths on a psychological level. There is no malicious intent, it's just fear that drives ignorance. That does not mean it doesn't have bad effects, but I don't think that they're at least aware of the evil that they're creating/spreading.

 

On the other hand religion - the institution (church, pulpit, preachers) - these are people who are evil, because (most of them anyway, from what I have observed) are not preaching from the heart, but they are doing it for a living; their belief in the superstition is all but evaporated (which is to be expected as one enters the financial web of the church life) but still they preach to the followers just to get the extra buck and put food on the table.

Posted

The claim that something as complex as the Universe came into being out of nothing, for no reason, is in the running.

Complexity is an emergent property. The universe did not begin complex as it is. In fact, the universe began in a state so simple cosmologists actually have trouble understanding why. Without knowledge of physics it is rather easy to think the world is complicated, when in reality it is difficult to explain why it is not.

Posted

If something is not observable (such as a concept), then it is just a thought. It cannot be proven to exists because it, by definition, doesn't.

A thought technically exists in a physical form within the mind of the person having it. Just because we can't prove that the thought exists doesn't mean it isn't there. That's like looking at the harddrive of a computer and saying that the picture on it doesn't exist because you can't see it. But if you attach a monitor, it's transformed into a version that you can perceive/prove.

Posted

A thought technically exists in a physical form within the mind of the person having it. Just because we can't prove that the thought exists doesn't mean it isn't there. That's like looking at the harddrive of a computer and saying that the picture on it doesn't exist because you can't see it. But if you attach a monitor, it's transformed into a version that you can perceive/prove.

 

The information on a hard drive only 'makes a picture' because it can be decoded by something else. The video card interprets this data into a virtual image; an optical illusion.

 

It is an optical illusion in the same way that a physical photograph is an optical illusion. The medium exists, but the information stored there is just information. It has no connection to current physical reality. The people in a photo are no more real than the characters of a comic book. 

 

How can we prove the existence of something external by looking at the data structures in our brains?

 

Posted

A thought technically exists in a physical form within the mind of the person having it. Just because we can't prove that the thought exists doesn't mean it isn't there. That's like looking at the harddrive of a computer and saying that the picture on it doesn't exist because you can't see it. But if you attach a monitor, it's transformed into a version that you can perceive/prove.

 

Actually we can prove that a thought exists. We don't yet have the technology to map out all thoughts and to determine each individual thought down to the granularity that exists in reality, but progresses have been made by science where we can map out major concepts in the brain and train a computer to act as a substitute interface for simple yes/no type answers. However, there has to be the capacity for though first and this we know also and can prove and we call the absence of it brain death.

 

The leap in logic that you seem to take, though, is that you think that by mapping out every little thought in the human brain you will somehow find God in there. That presupposes that God would exist there in the first place. And if God turns out not to be in there and all you get is their experiences of God, then that is not standard enough for proof of existence because dreams don't exist either, and neither do hallucinations, but your "radar" will be able to map their experiences in the same way. 

 

But consider this terrifying notion: what if we go through the mapping and do find something in our brains? Only it's not God (father of Jesus), but instead it turns out to be a very pissed off Zeus, the central figure of a long lost religion that nobody but a handful of crazies still follow today (I would assume it's not completely extinct, there are people "worshipping" the flying spaghetti monster and the church of the jedi). Would we then have to prostrate ourselves and burn down churches and mosques and everything of the sorts? Or would we just pretend that we had found nothing instead, so we can, at least, hang on to the illusion that we have now (whatever denomination that may be)?

Posted
onnadogsoth, on 13 May 2016 - 10:38 AM, said:

> The claim that something as complex as the Universe came into being out of nothing, for no reason, is in the running.

 

No it's not.  Nobody claimed that.  But even if they did it would still be less extraordinary than a being that could make the universe come into existance.

 

A rational entity doing rational things is less extraordinary than quantum randomess producing the Universe for no reason.  I have heard people claim that the Universe was created by quantum randomness for no reason.  What's the alternative?

 

 

 

> Saying that me being a sentient, sapient being is less extraordinary than me being an automaton is so because of your paradigm.  A

> primitive tribesman might say that you denying rocks and trees sentience is more extraordinary than believing the obvious truth that

> everything is ensouled. 

 

Except that of course we see no evidence that rocks have souls.

 

We have no evidence they do not.  All we can tell is that they are uncommunicative and like following the laws of physics.  What are you, anti-rock?

 

 

 

>I think you need something more than gauging extraordinariness in order to decide on a paradigm, because the paradigm is what

> decides the gauge.

 

I have something to guage extraordinariness, it's called reason and evidence.

 

Reason and evidence tells me the Universe operates according to reason, including not coming into existence for no reason.

 

Reason and evidence tell me that consciousness is an irreducible quality of existence, which means that that rock over there is either conscious (at some level) or is purely a figment of my sensorium.

Posted

We have no evidence they do not.  All we can tell is that they are uncommunicative and like following the laws of physics.  What are you, anti-rock?

 

The added complex assertion (without evidence) that rocks have souls has no explanatory power over how rocks interact with the rest of the universe, and therefore can be ignored in order to save precious fleeting brainpower for considering things that *do* have an effect on other things.

Posted

The added complex assertion (without evidence) that rocks have souls has no explanatory power over how rocks interact with the rest of the universe, and therefore can be ignored in order to save precious fleeting brainpower for considering things that *do* have an effect on other things.

 

It goes back to Kepler talking about the intentions of the planetary orbits.  Things fall because they want to fall.  The materialist paradigm of "dead matter" is a matter of faith based on a narrowly anthropocentric view of the cosmos, that humanity is an archipelago of consciousness amid vast oceans of death.  But this is not the basic datum that we have, which is that existence is conscious; we have, and can never have, a non-conscious perspective, so there is no reason to assign such to rocks.

 

Rocks of course are not like us in our sapience or organic sentience.  They appear to be "sparks" of consciousness, not fires such as we.  The alternative to grapple with is that, given all sensory data is internal to our minds, then are there any objects (noumena) associated with such data (phenomena) that are purely sense data?  Or is everything noumenal, everything "sparkish"?

Posted

But this is not the basic datum that we have, which is that existence is conscious; we have, and can never have, a non-conscious perspective, so there is no reason to assign such to rocks.

 

There is a logical fallacy there. The fact that we can never have a non-conscious perspective implies only that perspective is conscious, not that existence is conscious. Your assertion, does not exclude the fact that rock don't have a perspective, which is actually what the accepted model of reality is all along. It is the leap from perspective to existence that bio-centrists have repeatedly failed to prove and yet they sustain all of their claims on it. I'm not saying you're a biocentrist, I'm only saying that this line of argumentation has been used by them as well.

 

Rocks of course are not like us in our sapience or organic sentience.  They appear to be "sparks" of consciousness, not fires such as we.  The alternative to grapple with is that, given all sensory data is internal to our minds, then are there any objects (noumena) associated with such data (phenomena) that are purely sense data?  Or is everything noumenal, everything "sparkish"?

 

 

It does seem to me that in this paragraph you are asserting that rocks have some form of consciousness. That would require some significant standard of proof. Do you have any proof of this or is it just based on faulty syllogisms?

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