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heyrabbit

Cure For Death?

By heyrabbit, in Open Discussion

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Computer

Computer

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this thread rules, and hitler was probably already suffering brain damage from his syphilis when he attacked russia. Point is, let's discuss why it is more logical that a God or onmipotent omniscient being exists.

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hold up son, I found a site

 

"

1. Does God exist? The complexity of our planet points to a deliberate Designer who not only created our universe, but sustains it today.

 

Many examples showing God's design could be given, possibly with no end. But here are a few:

 

The Earth...its size is perfect. The Earth's size and corresponding gravity holds a thin layer of mostly nitrogen and oxygen gases, only extending about 50 miles above the Earth's surface. If Earth were smaller, an atmosphere would be impossible, like the planet Mercury. If Earth were larger, its atmosphere would contain free hydrogen, like Jupiter.3 Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.

 

The Earth is located the right distance from the sun. Consider the temperature swings we encounter, roughly -30 degrees to +120 degrees. If the Earth were any further away from the sun, we would all freeze. Any closer and we would burn up. Even a fractional variance in the Earth's position to the sun would make life on Earth impossible. The Earth remains this perfect distance from the sun while it rotates around the sun at a speed of nearly 67,000 mph. It is also rotating on its axis, allowing the entire surface of the Earth to be properly warmed and cooled every day.

 

And our moon is the perfect size and distance from the Earth for its gravitational pull. The moon creates important ocean tides and movement so ocean waters do not stagnate, and yet our massive oceans are restrained from spilling over across the continents.4

 

Water...colorless, odorless and without taste, and yet no living thing can survive without it. Plants, animals and human beings consist mostly of water (about two-thirds of the human body is water). You'll see why the characteristics of water are uniquely suited to life:

 

It has an unusually high boiling point and freezing point. Water allows us to live in an environment of fluctuating temperature changes, while keeping our bodies a steady 98.6 degrees.

 

Water is a universal solvent. This property of water means that thousands of chemicals, minerals and nutrients can be carried throughout our bodies and into the smallest blood vessels.5

 

Water is also chemically neutral. Without affecting the makeup of the substances it carries, water enables food, medicines and minerals to be absorbed and used by the body.

 

Water has a unique surface tension. Water in plants can therefore flow upward against gravity, bringing life-giving water and nutrients to the top of even the tallest trees.

 

Water freezes from the top down and floats, so fish can live in the winter.

 

Ninety-seven percent of the Earth's water is in the oceans. But on our Earth, there is a system designed which removes salt from the water and then distributes that water throughout the globe. Evaporation takes the ocean waters, leaving the salt, and forms clouds which are easily moved by the wind to disperse water over the land, for vegetation, animals and people. It is a system of purification and supply that sustains life on this planet, a system of recycled and reused water.6"

 

"Does God exist? "Chance" or "natural causes" are insufficient explanations.

 

The alternative to God existing is that all that exists around us came about by natural cause and random chance. If someone is rolling dice, the odds of rolling a pair of sixes is one thing. But the odds of spots appearing on blank dice is something else. What Pasteur attempted to prove centuries ago, science confirms, that life cannot arise from non-life. Where did human, animal, plant life come from?

 

Also, natural causes are an inadequate explanation for the amount of precise information contained in human DNA. A person who discounts God is left with the conclusion that all of this came about without cause, without design, and is merely good fortune. It is intellectually wanting to observe intricate design and attribute it to luck."

 

My arguement to that last point is that yeah. it is just fucking luck, look at how big the galaxy is... fucking retarded

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ecnarf

ecnarf

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Earth is the only known planet equipped with an atmosphere of the right mixture of gases to sustain plant, animal and human life.

 

It's funny because that mixture of gases to support higher life was created by, you guessed it, lower life. Earth's early atmosphere contained mostly methane, nitrous oxides and sulfur dioxide. A famous experiment involving these gases and electric sparks to simulate lightning have been shown to create amino acids, the building blocks of protein.

 

As for the rest of it, yeah. Luck pretty much explains it.

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I lawled a bit inside when I read this bit.

 

"Does God exist? To state with certainty that there is no God, a person has to ignore the passion of an enormously vast number of people who are convinced that there is a God.

 

This is not to say that if enough people believe something it is therefore true. Scientists, for example, have discovered new truths about the universe which overruled previous conclusions. But as science has progressed, no scientific discovery has countered the numerical likelihood of an intelligent mind being behind it all. In fact, the more science discovers about human life and the universe, the more complex and precisely designed we realize these to be. Rather than pointing away from God, evidence mounts further toward an intelligent source. But objective evidence is not all.

 

There is a much larger issue. Throughout history, billions of people in the world have attested to their firm, core convictions about God's existence--arrived at from their subjective, personal relationship with God. Millions today could give detailed account of their experience with God. They would point to answered prayer and specific, amazing ways God has met their needs, and guided them through important personal decisions. They would offer, not only a description of their beliefs, but detailed reports of God's actions in their lives. Many are sure that a loving God exists and has shown himself to be faithful to them. If you are a skeptic, can you say with certainty: "I am absolutely right and they all are wrong about God"?"

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ecnarf

ecnarf

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It's funny... there are fewer theists in the Royal Society and National Academy of Sciences than there are women. And there is a higher concentration of atheists towards the biological sciences, where people have the greatest understanding of the stupidly complex operations of life.

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ToadMan

ToadMan

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As an engineer I assert in rebuttal to all of those points that the design is as such since it can function no other way.

 

In terms of it coming about: If we did compute the probability of all of these factors (which will be none-zero), and If you consider how vast the universe is, are there enough grains of sand on the beach to have one actually meet all the requirements. I don't really know.

 

Further to that, can we really make any assertions about the foundations of the universe? We can explain how a great number of things work (H2O for example), but we can't really comment that authoritatively about their design.

 

I think the biggest sticking point about the correctness of religion is not even the premise of accepting intelligent design. I think the really tough part is the level of detail that more religions assert that don't allow for the mapping of scientific knowledge onto religious views. That is, for example that on the whole most religions will not allow you to utilize creation as a metaphor of evolution, even though evolution can be more acutely scientifically proven. The parallels are quite natural and don't tamper with the basis of either depiction.

 

 

But why are we talking about religion?

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heyrabbit

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See, here's what I don't get.  You're using unselfish and altruistic as synonyms for irrationality; where you were saying a few pages are there was no unselfishness, only rational and irrational selfishness, you're consistently using unselfish.

 

Take the Hitler and the Jews argument: he no doubt wanted them all dead for selfish, irrational reasons.  But selfishness and irrationality does not make someone unselfish.  Why the need to consistently redefine words?  To say that he was selfish, irrational and altruistic would suffice, but throwing unselfish in there is just confusing and semantical.

 

I do agree that for every example I've listed, there are aspects of the given behaviours that are inherently selfish in a way that merely appear unselfish (used in the typical sense).  In what few scientific postulates there are for the basis of most common human "morality", there exists a core of selfishness - if I am nice to this person, they will benice to me, and so on.

 

 

 

Oh, absolutely.  I may not be able to "prove" there is no god, but logical exercises can sure as hell disprove religious belief by showing the fallacies and inconsistencies within them.  Provided that you are dogmatic (an only slightly ironic use of the term) in applying logic and use a mathematical basis for it, there is no difficulty in showing that atheism is inherently more rational than any belief in a theistic god or other supernatural claims taken on faith.

 

 

 

How does that follow?  If people are collectively being unselfish or selfish in a group... that makes the group selfish or unselfish.

 

 

 

Because of police officers and the laws that they enact.  Criminals are brought to justice by people.  Jailtime isn't a natural consequence of comitting a crime, as there is no law of nature requiring it nor is there an omniscient deity out there to catch criminals and put them into jail.  It's a human process.  Obviously the individual police officer is of little consequence, but the collective group of police officers, lawyers, judges, etc., are what make it all happen.

 

 

 

You don't have to justify your use of the "but he started it!" argument.  It's a simplistic way of phrasing it but you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who thinks that WWII was not an entirely justifiable war, even though we didn't know that the Holocaust was going on until the soldiers reached Germany.  The reason war was declared was selfish - Europe would no doubt have been taken over, and it was a rational response.  Selfishness does not necessarily make something unjust

 

 

 

Yes, there is no such thing as unselfishness as it's currently understood by society's understanding of the word . i.e. that it's virtuous to not be selfish. This notion doesn't make any sense because it's based on a false premise of reality. Every action is a selfish action. So if someone is said to be acting unselfishly, you should be suspicious immediately because "unselfishness" a logical fallacy. If someone is not acting selfishly, i.e. not BEING CONSCIOUS, then who or what dictates their actions? The answer to this is morality. If someone is not acting according to their own morals, then whose morals are they living up to?

 

THIS is where the church comes into the discussion. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that a religious culture follows religious (perverted,irrational) morals. So what does unselfishness mean in a religious culture? Well, it means unearned obligation. i.e. altruism. You are obliged to do what "is right" according to an unidentified, ambiguous source of information. This means that your morals are dictated by whim (faith)

 

Why am i redefining words? What's wrong with a regarding the greatest evil as greatest virtue and vice versa? NLP has a greater influence on the psychological health of society than anyone realizes. It is the very act of defining symbols (abstract ideas) that makes us human. once you stop defining symbols, you stop being human. accepting everything in a present culture means to retard the progress of man. For the same reasons, accepting the ideas of a 16th century culture reverts man to that level barbarism. (religion)

 

Of course you can prove that it's more reasonable, so why did you say it's a paradox?

 

A group cannot be unselfish because there is no such thing as a collective mind. you can only generalize, which I hate.

 

Do I have to argue cause and effect? irrational causes often result in negative effects.

 

Yeah, of course not everyone thought WW2 was justifiable. that's because there are no absolute morals. that's my whole point

 

 

 

 

 

 

I lawled a bit inside when I read this bit.

 

"Does God exist? To state with certainty that there is no God, a person has to ignore the passion of an enormously vast number of people who are convinced that there is a God.

 

This is not to say that if enough people believe something it is therefore true. Scientists, for example, have discovered new truths about the universe which overruled previous conclusions. But as science has progressed, no scientific discovery mhas countered the numerical likelihood of an intelligent mind being behind it all. In fact, the ore science discovers about human life and the universe, the more complex and precisely designed we realize these to be. Rather than pointing away from God, evidence mounts further toward an intelligent source. But objective evidence is not all.

 

There is a much larger issue. Throughout history, billions of people in the world have attested to their firm, core convictions about God's existence--arrived at from their subjective, personal relationship with God. Millions today could give detailed account of their experience with God. They would point to answered prayer and specific, amazing ways God has met their needs, and guided them through important personal decisions. They would offer, not only a description of their beliefs, but detailed reports of God's actions in their lives. Many are sure that a loving God exists and has shown himself to be faithful to them. If you are a skeptic, can you say with certainty: "I am absolutely right and they all are wrong about God"?"

 

First of all, objective evidence is the only evidence . The only alternative to this is subjective evidence i.e. "Gravity is real cause I just feel it is in my heart! cause I dunno. "

 

I put it to you that there is absolutely no evidence in support of the theory that the earth was designed. And I'll say it again: the criteria for knowing what's true isn't thinking you know what's true. If that were the case, then science itself would be entirely redundant.

 

"How certain can you be that there is no god?"

 

You can be certain there is no god to same degree to which you are certain there is no Easter Bunny. You can't be called upon to prove a negative i.e. you can't be asked to know why goblins don't exist because it's impossible for you comprehend every possible fictional character or idea htat anyone can make up. So how can you be certain there is no god? How can you be certain there is no tooth fairy? The very fact that you don't know that god exists is sufficient in and of itself to know that it doesn't exist. The only requirement for being an atheist is that you are born.

 

Science doesn't work by deciding what doesn't exist and then proving yourself wrong. you first establish positives with positive information. i.e. existence exists. What does existence consist of? why is it how it is? etc. it's the law of nature.

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ecnarf

ecnarf

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Of course you can prove that it's more reasonable, so why did you say it's a paradox?

 

Because you speak of objective rationality yet when it comes to morals, you say that an individual's morals are all that matters.

 

It is the very act of defining symbols (abstract ideas) that makes us human. once you stop defining symbols, you stop being human.

 

What the hell? The ONLY thing that makes us human is the definition of symbols? That's both at the same time ridiculously broad and ridiculously narrow.

 

What's wrong with a regarding the greatest evil as greatest virtue and vice versa?

 

Because you risk confusing genuine evil with genuine virtue? Because you're making dangerous absolutist arguments that do not differentiate between a religious person throwing 10 bucks a week into the collection plate and mass murderers in terms of evil?

 

A group cannot be unselfish because there is no such thing as a collective mind. you can only generalize, which I hate.

 

Generalizations are still very useful. If 90% of a given group wears red shirts and only 10% wears blue, it's useful to say that the group wears red. It is useless to try to destroy the argument by pointing out the 10%, a considerable minority. If 90% of a band's songs suck, then that band sucks.

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heyrabbit

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an individual's morals is all that matters to the individual. whose morals are you following if not your own? when people say "it matters" it is usually an ambiguous statement. it matters for what reasons, to what degree and according to whom?

 

 

 

whether or not your morals are rational depends on how much they agree with reality i.e. how objective they are. Another person's morals "matters" to me insofar as they endanger or improve my life.

 

 

What the hell? The ONLY thing that makes us human is the definition of symbols? That's both at the same time ridiculously broad and ridiculously narrow.

 

YES, it is. we have many unique characteristics but our mind is our defining characteristic. What differentiates us from other species is our conceptual capacity( our ability to integrate abstract ideas). we didn't acquire the ability to create skyscrapers because we lost a tail or because we walk upright. If you gave rats the conceptual capacity and knowledge of a human, they could create skyscrapers.

 

 

 

Because you risk confusing genuine evil with genuine virtue? Because you're making dangerous absolutist arguments that do not differentiate between a religious person throwing 10 bucks a week into the collection plate and mass murderers in terms of evil?

 

No, because everyone else IS confusing evil with virtue. What do you mean by absolutist? Sure, you can differentiate between the severity of actions, but that's different. a virtue is a virtue. You can't hold two separate understandings of a virtue. i.e. reason isn't only virtuous when you're REALLY reasonable. What's evil about kind of killing someone?! If you have a false sense of virtues, it literally means that you don't know what's good -- for yourself and for everyone.

 

 

 

 

Generalizations are still very useful. If 90% of a given group wears red shirts and only 10% wears blue, it's useful to say that the group wears red. It is useless to try to destroy the argument by pointing out the 10%, a considerable minority. If 90% of a band's songs suck, then that band sucks.

 

generalizations are useful if you want to "kind of" know something. they're useful only to the degree to which they are general. 10% isn't a generalization; it's a precise measurement. you can say that 90% of a set-list sucks, but that's just your subjective opinion. it's useless scientifically.

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Lauren

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couldn't god be outside physics and all the other proof that he/she/it doesn't exist? of course it would be silly for a god to create something and not want credit for it, but hypothetically, couldn't god who whatever he/she/it wants (such as fooling us into thinking we have the world figured out in terms of science, etc)?

 

and adam, when you reply with how this is impossible for x number of reasons, don't attack me personally.

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ecnarf

ecnarf

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and adam, when you reply with how this is impossible for x number of reasons, don't attack me personally.

You know, I hadn't been considering it, but that just made me want to do it that much more.

 

Your argument is a bunch of things.

 

1. Extremely convenient. When there is no space for god within the operating universe, you simply declare him outside of it and therefore beyond all criticism or argument.

 

2. Fallacious. What created god? Where does god exist?

 

3. A watered down version of every other fallacious theology that couldn't keep up with reality.

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