Atheism: Love it or Leave it? - Part 3

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If you look at the universe, it's not at all intelligently built. Especially if he created it for humans. We can only inhabit parts of one planet... So unless that "Author of the Universe" is a frickin' moron, it probably wasn't.
 
This happened Sat...

So I was jogging at night at Rec center...1 mile trail around the complex and fields. Only small part was lit. Once I got into the pure darkness...I got scared...and prayed in head while jogging. Espicially once I saw the bridge in trees...oh hell no, my mind wanted Jason Voorhees or Headless Horseman to pop out. Also at times I ran. Oh, and nothing but happened.
 
Dr. said:
Based on your own description, it sounds like you do believe in god.
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Plato and Aristotle believe there was a concious intelligence constantly dreaming the universe in and out of existence so that everything that could possibly ever eixst would exist and it was not subject to any feelings towards man except total apathy and considered it another creation as equal to the rest of the universe. There could be a supernatural life force or spirit controlling the universe, but it has no individuality as a diety and no personality similar to that of a human being.
 
The justification for the described above "unmoved mover" was to stop the percieved infinite regress of causes, as that is a pardox.

However, where does that thing come from? what causes it to cause other things?

All that whole theory does is at best restate the question and at worse replace a paradox that we can percieve with one that we cannot.
 
Rocketman said:
I'm just going to throw this out there. :jedi

There has to be intelligent design. There has to be.
The Big Bang makes absolutely no sense.

Now, before you mistake me for religious, I'm not. I don't believe in religion or the Bible, and I think the Bible is pure fiction.

But having said that, we had to have gotten here somehow. And I really doubt that the universe magically appeared into what we know today because a tiny dot the size of a pencil-tip blew up and made everything. What caused that explosion? What was outside of the dot?

The mere fact that something caused the Big Bang tells you right there that there was a force that caused something, and that force was in existence before ANYTHING ELSE existed.

Now, I don't believe in "God" or "Gods" - I don't think there's a white bearded man in the sky who wears a white robe. But I certainly believe that there was a conscious intent / intelligent design that conjured everything into existence.
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Even if there was something that caused things to exist, it doesnt mean that it was intelligent.

Furthermore, if this thing did exist before existence WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

Did it come from something else? WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?


It's a restatement of the problem.

Furthermore, there was no "outside of the dot." By definition the "dot" was everywhere. Its like asking "where did the big bang happen?" It happenned everywhere. Everywhere just wasn't very big.
 
8wid said:
Plato and Aristotle believe there was a concious intelligence constantly dreaming the universe in and out of existence so that everything that could possibly ever eixst would exist and it was not subject to any feelings towards man except total apathy and considered it another creation as equal to the rest of the universe. There could be a supernatural life force or spirit controlling the universe, but it has no individuality as a diety and no personality similar to that of a human being.
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That doesn't change Dr.'s point. Aristotle and Plato were deists after all, and deism still espouses the belief in a god. They were brilliant men, but the problem I have with Plato's and Aristotle's argument for god is two fold; the idea that an immaterial thing can create and have influence on a material world (by it's definition an immaterial thing is something restricted to fantasy), and that the universe cannot be it's own cause and thus it needs an unmoved mover for it to be. The law of conservation let's me believe that it can be argued the universe always was, just in many different forms like water recycling itself. Or it's possible that the singularity always was, and it's expansion was the start of time itself.

These ideas cut out the need for a deists/theists to argue the unmoved mover always was. God, thus, becomes a middle man to be shaved upon Occam's Razor. But whatever the starting point you choose, someone can always insist that something came before it, and it always seemed to me the whole point of the unmoved mover argument was just an ad hoc way to settle the line of inquiry.

The argument from design is another ad hoc argument that reasons things in the reverse of their proper order. It argues from a perspective with human sentience at the beginning of things. With that in mind, corollary it is that nature has a comprehensive order of working itself out like human laws, and that nature has a particular design like man-made products, that nature thus must have a sentient presence behind it's mechanism. However, on the contrary, quite the opposite should seem true if you go by this flimsy reasoning. It should NOT be denied that nature preceded human sentience. Not the other way around. Thus, it should actually be argued that since human sentience can produce orderly systems and objects of design, that human sentience is just another product of nature. Nature is not just another product of sentience; not by this line reasoning (if reasoned from the proper starting point for a comparison) at least.

Though of course, this interferes with a lot of people's notion of free-will, and it's something that most individuals are emotionally afraid to give up in argument, not even to compatibalistic notions. Though I would say not to worry about it, anyway, since the argument is flimsy either way you spin it. It's a loose comparison that ignores how things come to appear designed to us, and how things are actually designed; whether by nature or living creature.
 
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Err...drama and help guys and gals.

On way to Walmart earlier, my niece was talking about Church to my mom. She asked or said I should be saved.

Me: I'm not Baptist.
Mom: It's Methodist.
Me: I'm not that.
Mom: Well, what are you?
Me: *whines and moans*

Then the niece and her briefly talk about me.

I can't say I'm Pagan/Neo-Pagan. This is the South...a Military town...tons of Churches around. It's not far off from a death sentence. Let's put it this way...they will probably accept me if I told them about my fetish...and that I'm not 100% straight....but if I start saying "My religion is Nature based." "I'm Neo-Pagan" Oh my goodess...It's one thing if I had my own place or had roommates, but I live at home and am struggling getting my life started.
 
GOD HATES CHECKERED WHIPTAIL LIZARDS

l7onrh.jpg


http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unreasonablefaith/2012/02/god-hates-checkered-whiptail-lizards/
 
8wid said:
There could be a supernatural life force or spirit controlling the universe, but it has no individuality as a deity and no personality similar to that of a human being.
Click to expand...

But if this force doesn’t have agency, individuality or personality – if it isn’t conscious or sentient – in what sense can it be called “supernatural”?
 
Dr. said:
But if this force doesn’t have agency, individuality or personality – if it isn’t conscious or sentient – in what sense can it be called “supernatural”?
Click to expand...

Is the force its self subject to the forces of nature? Does it exist outside of our plane of eixstence?
 
Dr. said:
But if this force doesn’t have agency, individuality or personality – if it isn’t conscious or sentient – in what sense can it be called “supernatural”?
Click to expand...

There is nothing in existance that is truly supernatural. The term is only used because it can exist outside of the natural realm and still is unable to be observed or explained by man and is assumed to exist in and our of mankind's perceived natural existence. You have to understand as man learns more about the natural universe or multiverse this term is going to be used less and less because our species will not rely on faith or religion for more than a few future centuries. It can appear omnipotenet and intelligent without having personality or conciousness. It may have evolved that way or been created that way. Dr. Manhattan is omnipotent, but is a natural or artificial creation, however he may also be perceived as a god by someone. I would hardly call him supernatural. The very meaning of that is something natural (in some new sense and existence) that has not been explained or observed by man. A jellyfish floats through some sort of existence endless reproducing because it's a permanent perputual organic recreation of some more primitive being, so is everything that exists in some way or another. Look for a biology definition of the chriteria for life more than I can give.
 
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I have a question for all skeptics out there.

Should musuems that make claims not based on scientific fact like creationist museums, UFO museums, cryptid museums etc. that have status as a 501(c)(3) public charity revoked if they have filed as an educational organization or a scientific one?
 
8wid said:
I have a question for all skeptics out there.

Should museums that make claims not based on scientific fact like creationist museums, UFO museums, cryptid museums etc. that have status as a 501(c)(3) public charity revoked if they have filed as an educational organization or a scientific one?
Click to expand...

I’m not sure that (say) the Creation Museum in Kentucky exists as a 501(c)(3) entity. I think it’s acknowledged to be a commercial venture.

Granted, it did receive some hefty tax credits from the state. But the pretext there was that the museum would be a boost to tourism, create jobs, etc. – the same consideration that other organizations get.
 
Thundercrack85 said:
If you look at the universe, it's not at all intelligently built. Especially if he created it for humans. We can only inhabit parts of one planet... So unless that "Author of the Universe" is a frickin' moron, it probably wasn't.
Click to expand...

We don't know that. There could be tons of inhabited planets for all we know.

Not saying I do or do not believe in God-personally, I'm a skeptic but I am not hostile to the notion.

I will say the math for intelligent and maybe even human life on other planets is easier to buy into than God, however. 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, for example, and between 100-300 billion Galaxies in the observable universe...percentages say there are more planets like Earth.
 
There's already been a number of planets like Earth spotted. Planets that aren't too far away from their sun, not too close, and of similar size to Earth.
 
Kurosawa said:
We don't know that. There could be tons of inhabited planets for all we know.

Not saying I do or do not believe in God-personally, I'm a skeptic but I am not hostile to the notion.

I will say the math for intelligent and maybe even human life on other planets is easier to buy into than God, however. 400 billion stars in the Milky Way, for example, and between 100-300 billion Galaxies in the observable universe...percentages say there are more planets like Earth.
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Yes, there are other planets out there capable of hosting life, but they are few and far in between. Does a god take credit for all the failed solar systems? For all the planets that did host life until they were destroyed by supernovas? Most of the universe we know, is empty. And useless for us. And then there's the fact that we have a pretty good idea of how planets are formed. Like Laplace said, god is unnecessary (well, he said it more eloquently, and in French, but I'm paraphrasing).

Even this planet isn't ideal for human habitation.
 
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I what a athiest take on this. I got coffee yesterday at the place I usually go, and donated a dollar in the jar...for spreading God's message. Christian Missionary I think.

Personally, I've done this before that this year, in January...donated a few dollars two days at Walmart towards a church for food and what not. The only thing I can think of is that by donating, it proves I believe in Freedom of Religion.
 
enterthemadness said:
I what a athiest take on this. I got coffee yesterday at the place I usually go, and donated a dollar in the jar...for spreading God's message. Christian Missionary I think.

Personally, I've done this before that this year, in January...donated a few dollars two days at Walmart towards a church for food and what not. The only thing I can think of is that by donating, it proves I believe in Freedom of Religion.
Click to expand...

If its for feeding the hungry and the poor, I get it, but as an atheist, I definitely could not support "spreading God's message".
 
enterthemadness said:
I what a athiest take on this. I got coffee yesterday at the place I usually go, and donated a dollar in the jar...for spreading God's message. Christian Missionary I think.

Personally, I've done this before that this year, in January...donated a few dollars two days at Walmart towards a church for food and what not. The only thing I can think of is that by donating, it proves I believe in Freedom of Religion.
Click to expand...

I'm an athiest, and I give to charity. Its good to help others, which god or religion you do it for is personal and ultimately irrelevant.
 
enterthemadness said:
Err...drama and help guys and gals.

On way to Walmart earlier, my niece was talking about Church to my mom. She asked or said I should be saved.

Me: I'm not Baptist.
Mom: It's Methodist.
Me: I'm not that.
Mom: Well, what are you?
Me: *whines and moans*

Then the niece and her briefly talk about me.

I can't say I'm Pagan/Neo-Pagan. This is the South...a Military town...tons of Churches around. It's not far off from a death sentence. Let's put it this way...they will probably accept me if I told them about my fetish...and that I'm not 100% straight....but if I start saying "My religion is Nature based." "I'm Neo-Pagan" Oh my goodess...It's one thing if I had my own place or had roommates, but I live at home and am struggling getting my life started.
Click to expand...

Why not just say "I hate labels", "I'm more spiritual than religious", "I believe in Jesus, not a religion (technically, you don't have to believe Jesus was divine to believe he existed)", "I have a personal relationship with God not a religion", or some other evasive answer that will keep your beliefs vague while giving misleading implications.
 
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