Atheism

fresco thinks you are in denial E.

good for Fresco

This universe would somehow gain more "meanings" with some silly god being the designer behind the scene?

We would be more important in the universe with this god existing and why do you have a desire to be "important" whatever that term means to you?

Why horror if the universe does not have a meaning in human terms?

I just do not understand your emotional needs in this regards.

Here is a poem as I remember it:

The man proudly stated to the universe "I exist"

The universe reply back as follow “I am aware that you’re existent however that fact places me under no obligation to you"

Well, waaaay back when I was a theist, my belief level got a little rocky with ups and downs, myself busy reading to shore things up, and then one sunny day, I just saw it all as a giant manmade construct.. not just my religion, catholicism, but all of them. But, what I meant with that comment, is that I suspect some churchgoers are still attending, even loaded with doubt, because of the community expectation involved. I'm thinking of my father, for example, who I'd love to talk with now. He'd be 104... Too late. But I can have conversations with him in my mind. Not all that much about that, though some, but about life in general. He died too early in my life.

I don't have any such emotional needs for "closure". I merely suggest thst they explain the tendency to religion in general theism in particular.

Good story, Pan, and very much to the point.

When i was very young, maybe five or six, i resentfully accepted the existence of a deity, but i thought he was one mean, ill-bred, petty son of a bitch--and although the language was not mine at that time, that was exactly my sentiment. Over the succeeding years, i lost all interest in organized religion, and eventually simple stopped believing any of it, religion taken aside. The change was sufficiently gradual that i had probably stopped believing altogether for years before i gave it conscious thought.

To suggest that anccient humans would have had any point of reference with which to perceive the "dome" of the sky as anything else, let alone a view into eternity stinks to me of projecting our knowledge and values onto the past. Certainly people would have seen the sky as a dome over their heads--and people contemplated the possibility that stars were suns very far away at a time when they continued to see the sky as a dome over their heads. What a bunch of twaddle most philosophy appears to be.

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The point is we still do, but the significance of that point would be missed by twaddle collectors.

To the extent that twaddle collectors is an accurate description of those obsessed with the excellence of their philosophical comprehension, i'm not surprised since they so often miss most of the relevant points about the nature of human existence.

To the extent that the cosmos is an expanding mass of matter and energy, which, apparently, expands at an equal rate in all directions, the sky is a dome over our heads. That we may be nearer one portion of the dome than another is neither here nor there in terms of perception.

Ascribing existential angst to our ancient ancestors with reference to a chilling fear of the implications of infinity is not just silly, it's incredibly stupid.

I would say "filling the void", but I think I know what you mean. No matter
what the universe's boundary -- or lack of same, it's mind-boggling in
proportion to ourselves as individuals.

What if you substitute awe for horror?

Only a fool with an inflated view of his grasp of history would think I'm talking about our ancestors.

I would suggest that if you're hanging out there on the periglacial steppes, with predators such as cave bears, short-nosed bears, cave lions, saber-toothed tigers and like around you--predators far larger than their contemporary counterparts--with the annual prospect of a late spring killing off children and the "elderly" (anyone over the age of about 25) and threatening the entire band with scurvy and its debilitating effects, one would have more than enough to awe and mystify oneself without reference to notional perceptions of infinity.

Why does the sky suddenly open with falls of snow that can bury us all so that we cannot hunt, and maybe cannot even get to firewood or our hoarded food? Why does the sky open with falls of rain which flatten our huts and wash away all of our stored resources? Why does the earth shake so that we cannot stand upright? Why do mountains suddenly explode making the air unbreathable and flinging flaming stones for as far as the eye can see? Why are we suddenly struck with illnesses which lay low the young, strong and healthy as readily as the old, weak and infirm? Why are the game animals upon which we rely suddenly struck with illnesses which kill off the young, strong and healthy as readily as the old, weak and infirm? Why does the sky fail to open with rain, leaving the plants upon which we rely to wither and die before we can harvest the useful parts?

There have been questions enough to trouble the ignorant and superstitious from time immemorial without reference to the rarified idea chopping of modern philosophers. I have read estimates for the appearance of homo sapiens sapiens that range from 50,000 ybp to 150,000 ybp, so for sake of discussion i'll settle on 100,000 ybp for a range. In 100,000 years, and with a new generation available about every fifteen years, that's more than 6,000 generations of humans to contemplate, or simply be spooked by, such questions. Certainly the population density of human beings was pretty damned sparse for 6,000 generations, so the probability of one extremely perceptive and cogently articulate man or woman arising in any one group would have been very low, the more so as most people simply did not survive their "poor, nasty, brutish, and short" lives sufficiently long enough to give such ideas careful consideration. Additionally, it was likely for most of those 6,000 generations that nearly everyone's time would have been required to acquire and keep the wherewithal to survive from one year to the next--never mind philosophizing.

So it occurs to me (in fact, occurred to me long ago), that it is likely that any give band only produced such an individual--man or woman--on an occasional basis, occasional on the scale of generations. The power which would accrue to any such man or woman who could produce plausible answers to those very crucial questions which would have made everyone in the group anxious would have been enormous, so long as they could successfully juggle their production of what would have been essentially the first primitive theology. Their talent for improvisation and narrative creation would not have been taxed with questions of infinity, but only with questions about the rains, how long winter will last, when will it be time to go pick the berries--basic, crucial questions of interest to everyone in the group.

I have no doubt that shamanism was the product of the occasional appearance of such a clever man or woman, and the codification of their answers. At whatever point those particular individuals took to looking into the sky at night, and made the necessary intellectual connections which would allow them to accurately predict the procession of the seasons, they would have acquire that power which would assure their ascendancy over their superstitious fellows. So long as they could pull off that trick, their livelihood would have been assured, and their lives, however poor, nasty and brutish would very likely have been appreciably longer, further facilitating the accumulation of lore which would help to more firmly establish the practice of shamanism. From there, the next obvious step would be to acquire one or more acolytes of sufficient intelligence for them to memorize the necessary stories and knowledge of the progress of the stars across the night sky which would enable them to perform the same tricks, to provide the same assurances. Religion would have been born.

I am equally convinced that within no more than a generation or two, you'd have one or more men or women sitting around the bonfire at night, muttering "bullshit" under their breath. The obvious move for the clever shaman is to bring his or her potential critic quickly into the circle of the shamans, and co-opt their incredulity and its potentially deleterious effects on the established church. One needn't canvas over-ramified concepts such as the possibility of infinity, and it's anxiety-ridden implications to see where religions very likely came from.

Most recently,



However, previously,



Only a fool would attempt to claim that he meant anything else.

You're really not very good at this sort of thing, are you? That probably accounts for why you have so quickly descended into name-calling. Perhaps you missed the recent post by the author to this thread asking that people not indulge in name-calling. It is matter of indifference to me whether or not you have any respect for me, i certainly don't want it. But you might display a modicum of respect for the wishes of the author of this thread.

Pathetic ! A request from "respect" from a foul-mouthed abuser of other posters.

If you don't understand what I'm talking about, fine, just say so. My comments about the night sky are a psychological fact which partially accounts for the ""moon illusion" . They are there to support possible mechanisms underlying our desire for closure. Please don't bore us by simplistic attempts at twisting the argument towards your history fixation. And if you have nothing positive to say, keep your mouth shut !

More name-calling. More evidence of your inability to deal with criticism. I don't want respect from the likes of you, and didn't ask for it. I suggested that you show some respect for the author of the thread.

I understand you far better than you care to admit. I rejected your claim, as quoted just above, that the concept of a deity comes from some sort of existential angst that our ancestors felt when looking into the night sky, but being unwilling, or psychologically unable to face the prospect of an infinity in which they were insignificant. That is what i have argued against. To attempt to suggest that this results from a "history fixation" on my part is an absurdity, unless you want to now suggest that the concept of a deity arose a week ago Monday, or at sometime within your lifetime. Obviously that refers to our ancestors, whether or not you are honest enough to admit it. As for fixations, you really have no room to criticize anyone else for that. You attempt to play semiotician with anything said by anyone else, on any topic. It's as ridiculous as you accusing anyone else of being pedantic.

Don't give me orders about what i can or can't say. Do you suggest that no one should ever disagree with someone else? Is that your idea of debate? Is your ego so fragile that you can't abide having your ideas challenged? If you can't deal with debate without resorting to name-calling, keep your mouth shut!

I'm hinting at the idea of "encapsulation" as in "safety in the womb". This would reflect the use of the parental terms such as "Father - Children". (There used to be a UK advert with the slogan "Get the strength if the insurance companies around you")

As a related issue there is a branch of systems theory concerned with "the observation of observation" which views individual human psychology as being nested in social and global system hierarchies. It is left as a open epistemological question whether such hierarchies are ultimately closed (perhaps at the level of "deity") or whether the nesting progresses outwards ad infinitum.

WOW!! This from someone who has not only done more than his fair share of name calling but has people on Ignore because he couldn't deal with a debate. Only yesterday Set called me an alcoholic.

To be fair fresco also has resorted to Ignore.

This is like a spat between two ladies of abandoned and inconstant manners.

It is well known that the Greeks feared notions of infinity to the extent that they executed anyone who spoke publicly on the matter. It was known as "corrupting the youth." Socrates was the most prominent victim and Jesus may well also have been in a later time.

The taboo put an end to their mathematics. Only Christian mathematics could have lead to the lifestyle we now are so fortunate to enjoy.

OK, now I get it.