No such thing as God.

sol,

The bit about shooting rats at the dump was supposed to be the funny part! Forgive me if you count yourself amidst the uninspired - but i wouldn't have placed you among thier number. Despite your faith in the benefits of snakehandling you are awake intellectually - unlike Meteo's friends who's hightest aspirations are fellatio related.



Forgive me, for while i'm sure your concern about the environment is 100% geniuine, if hedged by unfounded belief in the immortality of the soul, the thing is, looking at this as an epistemological issue is always going to jar uncomfortably against the tennets of your sect.

But it must be discussed in these terms - for the root and common cause of the energy crisis, climate change, overpopulation and environmental degradation is action in the course of ideological rationale. It's only by accepting a scientifically valid conception of humankind and the reality we inhabit can all the issues we need to address be internalized to the discussion. Otherwise we get tangled up in the conceptual bindweed of religion, keep falling over national borders and with all the resources we need right there in frount of us, are unable to find two pennies to rub together.

Snakehandling? Ouch, that's a low blow. And there are no tennets of my sect, as I have no sect. Like you, I am cronie-less. :-p

I'm also able to seperate ideology from epistomology. This doesn't mean that I dismiss ideology altogether from my mind, only that I agree it's no way to run a government.

Solace,

I respect your desire to make sense of it all in terms of something larger than yourself - but i don't agree that one has to bend reason around some unfathomable idea in order to do so. For me, there's no meaning or purpose unless the species has a future. This is the real bigger picture. Applying the wonders of technology on the basis of thier scientifically concieved merits, rather than for profit or national security, we could overcome the problems we face now and go on to make a paradise of this world. And if we don't it's all going to come crashing down around our ears - you know that don't you?

I agree entirely. In fact, I'm not someone who believes that I should give any consideration to what I do in this life for what it might mean spiritually. The very notion assaults my sense of what God is. If God exists, he doesn't need me to do anything for him, neither to prove he exists nor to prove my faith. If there is a world to come and I can't even manage the world I'm living in now, then there's no place for me in the next either. So my thoughts and goals, my aspirations, are for this life. The next, should it exist, will take care of itself.

I'm by no means advocating that we, as a society, should strive for any spiritual, idealogical, or religious goal. We should do exactly what you're saying, apply the wonders of technology and every other scientifically conceived merit to overcome the problems we face as a species and improve our world. To do so doesn't require that I give up my faith, it simply requires that I see that there is more to me than just my faith, that my reason and intellect are powerful tools that I would be a blind fool to willingly ignore.

I am not so eagerly awaiting the next world that I am willing to sacrifice this one. In fact there are some very worthy things about this world that makes me very much enjoy being a part of it. But many of those things are those that are endangered by the wanton and waste of a degraded society that teaches us such perversions as, "God wants you to be rich." This has become the norm of religious dogma, and I understand entirely when a decent, kind individual hears it and wants to barf at the very mention of God. But just because people lie about God doesn't mean he doesn't exist. Nor does it mean that because I believe he does, whether he does or not, that I am going to listen to the foolishness being shovelled by the collective compost heap that is religion and not to sound, scientific advice of persons like yourself.

My apologies to those here who are religious. But as you can see religious doctrine has done a lot of damage to the very image that it claims to be promoting. Religion has turned off and away the greatest minds throughout history. The very people that we should be looking to to lead us to improve society becomes society's rejects, because religion said, "No, Galileo, the world is flat." And it still refuses to open its eyes today, saying things like, "Putting on a condom is a sin," so AIDS runs rampant throughout Africa and your own missionaries there try desperately to help the dying, all the while scratching their heads and unable to understand why so many people have the disease. It's not that hard to figure out. I likened religion to a compost heap, because the most that religion can hope for is to make something good grow, but right now ya just stink.

Isn't it funny how we can prove we exist. But we still ponder the existence of a deity that holds our origin. There are many
explanations for the creation of earth and the origin of man.
The big bang, for instance is said to have created the universe
how can we prove it happened and if so what did it come from?

Solace,

Honestly, I don't know that God doesn't exist, but i don't think so. I've arrived at this conclusion after a great deal of soul searching and research - but it's an opinion based on the overwhelming likelyhood that the idea originated with man - for reasons already stated, and because of the supernatural characterization, and that it's too nice - too easy.

I understnd why people want to believe it and i'd say good luck to them if i didn't truly believe, again for good reasons, that it undermines humankind at a very fundamental level. We are the knowing animal - that's what's special about us, and scientific method honours us - it's who we are doing what we are best at.

Religion on the other hand, plays upon our shortcomings as a knowing animal - by inviting, inducing, indoctinating us to believe that which we cannot. It hasn't always been so - as i've said, religion has provided meaning and purpose through a long dark history, but since the emergence of rational knowledge, it's become ever more false, spooky and dysfunctional.

It's a shame that the Church of Rome chose to establish the Inquisition, to jail Galileo, burn books and persecute intellectuals, not merely because it held up intellectual progress for half a millenia but because it set religious doctrine in stone and caused this awful situation we're in now where our fondest hopes and instituions, founded on religious grounds are on the opposite side of an abyss to science.

They had options - there's no reason why hope rather than faith couldn't have been centralized to religious worship. I hope God exists - i don't believe it, but then why should i? Because the Church requires my faith that they can bend my reason and own my soul. They preach humility but know only hubris - pride, and perfidy before the fall.

'Son of Adam. You have eaten of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Now swallow.'

The idea of a car originated with man, but cars exist. The idea tree originated with man, yet trees exist.

HI DT, I'm glad you're here - else we would have no-one defending people's right to be as backward as they like! Cars i believe in - but not Christine. Trees though - we couldn't possibly have invented trees. We could, possibly have invented God. Indeed, if we entertain the idea, just for a moment, it seems to explain a lot. Open your mind just a fraction and give it a go.

Ed, That's laugh-out-loud funny. (i)

It's true that man could have invented god ,But there are somethings
man didn't invent like trees. God could be one of them but he could not be.
Were always lookin for reasons that he doesn't exist why? idk. Maybe
to deny the morals that god sets maybe because were so scientfically
explained for so many other things. Yet we still don't even know our origin
or the origin of the universe.

Open my mind? Geez, buddy, do you just assume I'm closed minded because I defend certain notions of God? I've been on your side of the fence.

We didn't invent trees, we invented the concept of a tree. Humans invented all concepts. Of course we invented the concept of God. But our invention of the concept does not render the concept meaningless.

That's a great point DT - though we may have contrived an idea for something, it really has nothing to do with it's existence (it could exist, regardless of our ideas). Here's the thing, though:

The idea of God, as most currently believe (I'm basing this on documented religious texts, and of course, my experience with religion) is an omniscient, magical being, with an ability to do anything any time or place. Instead of actually continuing the thought process of what that exactly even MEANS, the average human stops. All thinking stops, and a wave of ignorant acceptance sweeps over. Nothing is questioned or considered, or ever further modified or expounded. For instance, here's a quick analysis through all of ten minutes of me considering God(I also posted this in another thread in response)----

"If every possible reality is simultaneously occurring in our universe, and every possible reality is simultaneously occurring in every other universe, then every thing is simultaneously occurring in a universe. Now, if something is omniscient and knows EVERYTHING, that would encompass all of this, completely defying our perception of time.

"It" would know it's knowing that it knows, not only in the present, but the past and future. "It" would even know that it knows it knows it knows, not only in the present, but in the past and future. Also, this would occur in all universes.

Not to mention, there are an infinite amount of "things" that come into existence at any given point in time, so every passing moment, it would know even more. But at the same time it wouldn't know any more because there is no perception of time. It wouldn't even be able to relate to "more", "less", "past", "present", "future". It would be every time, every place, every thing.

More importantly, it wouldn't be "good" or "evil". We must remember those are also concepts that we apply, not that actually exist. Therefore, there would be no judgment on it's part."

Not many can even wrap their minds around these ideas, as time and space aren't variables for us, but merely progressions. And you can't even blame people, as that's the way we live - if we questioned EVERY single thing, we'd go nowhere. However, when we willingly step into a cage (religion), and choose to not even consider, I feel that's a major problem. And it is occurring. Constantly. And I feel this ignorance must not proceed if we wish to advance, or even survive, as a species.

I don't think that was to be taken personally.

DT,

I haven't suggested for a moment that the concept of God is meaningless - quite the opposite. I've suggested that it occured to man as an explanation of his existence. That's deeply meaningful in itself, but further proposed that the idea of God was employed as a common understanding and objective authority for law that enabled hunter-gatherer tribes to come togther without one tribe submitting directly to the rule of another. Rather, social rules were expressed as if they were the rules of God. Without that we'd still be hunting and gathering. It's a hugely menaingful concept right there at the dawn of human intellect, allowing and shaping our development right up to the present era.

Science is more meaningful though, because it's more valid. Let's face it - from this primitive beginning human curiosity found science, but it didn't find so much as a fingerprint to indicate the exitence of God. It's a skeptical concept holding fast in face of a mountian of evidence based knowledge - because the requirement of faith, abusively drummed into children before the age at which they can make reasoned judgments, renders curiosity sinful.

I think you are closed minded - and i challenge you to assume that God is a creation of man, and think about what that means for one day out of your life. Think about what it explains and what it means to who we are and what our just purposes are, what our obligations are to eachother, and the future of our species. I wonder if you can?

And here's the thing - while we can bring up many criticisms of God, none of those criticisms (that I have seen) apply to all notions of God.

Not all notions of God rely on God as being, literally, omniscient, magical being, with an ability to do anything any time or place. So whatever problems this notion of God (omniscient, magical being, with an ability to do anything any time or place) might encounter, we cannot make the mistake of thinking all notions of God have the same flaws.



And I sympathize, and share, your concerns about ignorance. And often religion is the cage you describe. However, once again, these criticisms are not universally applicable to notions of God.

This is why we have to have a degree of sensitivity when considering religious ideas like God.



God did occur to man as an explanation of man's existence. However, God's role was not, and is not, limited to an explanation of existence, and in some cases, God has nothing to do with explanations of existences in the way science attempts to explain existence. For example, notions of God do not necessarily contradict the theory of evolution, though some notions of God do contradict this theory.



I have to disagree here. I think you have it backwards. God was not an objective authority for the law, instead, certain language was used to explain the abstract notion of God. Take the use of 'Lord' as a title for God. The title is a metaphor, God is like the King, the Lord. These metaphors are useful to common people when trying to understand the abstract notion of God.

God was not used as a way for various tribes to come together, tribes come together when one dominates another. Even with common religious ideas, tribes fight one another until one tribe dominates the others - consider the Mongols prior to unification under Ghengis Khan. They all had, essentially, the same religious beliefs. Consider China during it's various states of disunity. Essentially the same religious beliefs, and still they do not come together - they fight until one tribe dominates all the others.



And I have to ask - valid for what?

I see science and religion has having entirely different concerns, and when religion takes on scientific concerns, that religious attempt is misguided and dangerous.

Science does not give us means to cope with the passing of a friend; science explain the process of the friend's life and death, but offers nothing in the way of dealing with emotions. Science can explain the functioning of emotions (the various neural impulses in the brain, ect).



And why should we expect science to find evidence of God? Again, science and religion have different subjects. Science has not found any evidence of 'good' or 'evil'. Science has not found any evidence of 'beauty'. These are human concepts, concepts which do not apply to material objects. Of course scienc has found no evidence of them, they are outside the realm of scientific investigation.

There is no 'mountain of evidence based knowledge' that discredits the notion of God - again, science has no way of amassing evidence either for or against God.

Further, not all faith traditions required blind faith 'drummed into children before the age at which they can make reasoned judgments'. Buddhism, for example, suggests we abandon blind faith in anything and everything - including blind faith in the teachings of the Buddha.

I sympathize with the criticisms, as they are valid. But you apply them in an invalid manner. You find a valid criticism for one notion of God and make the mistake of applying that criticism to all notions of God. Straightforward logical fallacy.



Do you realize how easy it is for me to make the exact same call against you?

As for your 'challenge' you are years too late, my friend. I have been on your side of the fence. Your arguments are not new nor innovative. There was a time when I would have been here supporting your arguments, instead of tearing them down. But you wouldn't know that, as you do not know me - which is exactly why your assumptions about my personal character are out of line and inappropriate.

I have to begin to wonder if you can, if only for a moment, set aside those deeply held biases against religion at large, and consider the logic of my arguments thus far. I believe you can, though I doubt you will. I hope I'm wrong about you.

So what we've learned here is that we don't know if God exists. Which is something we all knew anyway. I like how you put that, icono; I hope God exists, but I don't know it. It's when people say that they know God exists that we find a roadblock to any sort of social or scientific advancement. I think, if you think about it, telling people that there is a more reasonable and sensible way to think about their faith and God, rather than telling them they must accept that there is no God, is going to get you a whole lot further on your campaign to save the species. I'm behind you 100%, as long as you don't turn anti-religion into a religion.

"I have to begin to wonder if you can, if only for a moment, set aside those deeply held biases against religion at large, and consider the logic of my arguments thus far. I believe you can, though I doubt you will. I hope I'm wrong about you."

If he doesn't, then he's in the same position as one in a religious cage.

Thomas, thank you for the insight - you're absolutely right. I must also consider all notions of God, and not make the oversimplication that everyone shares the same notion, and thus the same ignorances.

Nietzsche used to perceive going to a church in much the same way as going to a pub. In a pub you drink your sorrows away, denying problems, and ultimately staying blissful - but ignorant. Likewise, going to a church meant that you would also deny your problems, watering them down by believing a magical entity should provide comfort. Both provide the same duties, yet neither address a problem for what it was. Instead of denying the problem, Nietzsche believed you should acknowledge it for what it was. That is to say, don't deny your desires, problems, or perceptions, but acknowledge them, learn from them, better yourself from them. Ignoring them, denying the problem never led to true fulfillment in his eyes.

Although I'm not here to argue whether or not having a drink is "wrong", the point is, I believe too much of this blissful ignorance exists, and Nietzsche held some very good points. It's frightening even speaking to the majority of people nowadays, immersed in their everyday lives - it seems as if they all have leashes around their necks! Many don't give as much as a second thought to their actions or reasons for believing something. Infectious memes, as Richard Hawkins named them.

You're right, I must continue enlightening myself, but someday, someday I wish to enlighten others.

A rather wise fellow once told me (although he often called himself foolish,) that, "The man who said ignorance is bliss, was an ignorant man."

Ah, because denying ANYTHING is potentially ignorant, no wait, it IS ignorant. The mere fact that we think something is ignorant, is in fact being ignorant.

Which actually leads me to a previous thought of mine:

What if that cage I describe is actually just a small subset of a larger cage, that really holds all of us. In other words, every insight we actually think we may have suffers from the same problems as another other ideal or belief - a lack of consideration. The moment we think something is something, we are succumbing to ignorance. :eek:

Which leads me to my next thought: Do we really even have the capability to progress?

ThouArThat is asking: Remember the "I am" abound?


"I am the One Whole, the ALL.

"Glorify thou Me, the One Whom I am, for I am ALL, and no other is.

"I, the sexless One, am Unity.

"What I am thou art, for thou art Me; thou art the Whole.

"Glorify thou thy Self, for in so doing thou art glorifying Me.

"I, the One Whole, am knowing Mind. I exist to think. All thinking is Light of My knowing but My thinking is not Me.

"I am Creator, creating with My thinking.

"Out of My Light of knowing are My two lights of thinking born as sexed pairs of opposites for repetition as sexed pairs of opposites.

"To think is to create. I create with Light. Nothing is which is not Light.

"I think idea. Light registereth My idea in the two sexed lights of My thinking, and form is born in the image of My thinking.

"Form hath no existence, nor have My imaginings. These exist not, for they are not Me. I alone existeth; I, the ALL.

"I create my imaged body with the inbreathing of My pulsing universe of Me.

"My universe is My image; but My image is not Me.

"All things are My image, but they are not me, e'en though I am in them and they in Me."

---From The Divine Iliad