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[anzki4]

-snip-

You seem to assume that atheism = caring only about logic/science, which is quite frankly moronic view. Your examples - fishing, affection, victory - had nothing to do with religion, but can be experienced and enjoyed by religious people and atheist alike.

[Graknorke]

There's a tvtropes page and a xkcd for this. I'll find the former and entrust someone else with the latter.

Spoiler: found (click to show/hide)

[Scoops Novel]

I love Bay 12 . And here's the TVTROPES page. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeasuringTheMarigolds

[Graknorke]

I love Bay 12 . And here's the TVTROPES page. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MeasuringTheMarigolds

And there's another XKCD linked in TvTropes article too, which is basically the opposite of the other one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[XXSockXX]

Here is my major problem with atheism: if you don't combine it with any philosophy such as humanism, you end up with people who care more about themselves than others.

Morality comes from genetics and socialisation.
Most modern religions have a fair amount of humanism in them, but there are enough examples in history where religions threw humanism over board and decided that they had to kill heretics or non-believers.
Atheism does not give you moral values. Religion does, but these values are not necessarily humanistic.

And there's another XKCD linked in TvTropes article too, which is basically the opposite of the other one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hm. I can see the link in the code, but when I click the spoiler, I don't see the picture.

[Helgoland]

Here's a question:

1) Kids are malleable.
2) At no point is there a sudden change of personality in the kid.
3) From 1) and 2): Therefore our modus of viewing the world, our beliefs and concepts, are influenced by our upbrinnging,

Can we still have actual free will?

[Argembarger]

-snip-

To cut this short, I think the real issue I'm taking with your premise is that, even with a full and complete list of every actual mechanism that makes the universe run, this thing would not be trivial to implement.

What's stopping you or me from just making up a complete system of physics from scratch and simulating a universe right now in 100 lines of code or less? It doesn't have to look or behave anything like ours. The physical laws can be utter hogwash, just as long as they are self-consistent.

I think there's a fundamental element missing here. I don't think a simple system can truly contain a more complicated one within itself, and still be called simple.

Maybe the user interface would be simple. But the interface is just a small piece of the system.

I really think a computer that would actually be capable of doing this would be indistinguishable from an unimaginably enormous cybergod.

And by then we've settled the issue of religion. God isn't in the machine. God /is/ the machine.

[XXSockXX]

Can we still have actual free will?

We perceive the world as if we had a free will. But every tiny decision we make is determined by thousands of things, like body chemistry, electricity in the brain, wiring of brain cells that lead to habits, opinions and perceptions. We don't actually have a free will, but are formed by genetics and upbringing and what we make of it.

[Argembarger]

Can we still have actual free will?

We perceive the world as if we had a free will. But every tiny decision we make is determined by thousands of things, like body chemistry, electricity in the brain, wiring of brain cells that lead to habits, opinions and perceptions. We don't actually have a free will, but are formed by genetics and upbringing and what we make of it.

I think that being self-aware and sentient shakes up the game a little more than that.

Unless we only think we're self-aware.
But then we can think that we only think we're self-aware.
But then, we can think that we think that we're only self-aware.
This cycle can expand forever. This stuff's really complex.

[Descan]

I still like that xkcd where one dude says "Life is meaningless, there's no point in doing anything." and the other guy said says "Yeah that's true. Hey let's go climb that tree!" With a response of "What? Why?" "Because it's fun!"

[Starver]

Probably well ninjaed, but my take on this...

Laws have to be made in the universe with OUT  any reason for them being made, why was gravty made long before planets?

Simple to answer, this one.  Planets (as we know them, and on the premise of no divine hand involved) could not be made without gravity.  As such we are 'privileged' to be in a universe where "gravity was made, then planets".

[...]why dose it look logical? (with out laws the universe would not be here) thats just the start

It's an interesting start, especially asking "why things are like they are".  Usually leading to one or other of the Anthropic Principles, some of which are akin to ID.  But at the other end of the scale "if it didn't work, it wouldn't be here".  Or "if it worked differently then it would be different", and then either we wouldn't be here (because we couldn't exist under a system that works differently) or 'we' would be different and wondering why the (different) system was so well attuned to create our (different) selves...

You claim it is, I disagree, I believe in god for the same reason except that IMO God is a lot less complex then evrey sing TRILLION Pound TRILLION of things harping on their own

Either way, I say there's a single cause.  I'd personally go for that single cause cascading the whole set of 'laws' (our interpretations of how the universe ticks, which are doubtless approximations, just like Newton is good enough until you need to take Einstein into account, etc).  Whether we can derive the TOE/GUT that is the core of the universe is... not something I'm confident about.  But we can refine what we know about gravity and relativity and quantum mechanics and the like to get an "ahh... that's why there's a Speed Of Light/Higgs Boson/good chance that toast will fall butter-side-down/etc, etc, etc".

God's complexity (IMO) comes from the fact that now we have to apply intention to the mix.  It's not "particles were created with a mutually attractive force between them, which leads to them clumping, leading to [everything else, as a series of dependant events]", but "why does God think that it would be a good idea to have stars and planets and moons, instead of just one large flat sheet for everything?"  Indeed, God could intend that tomorrow (it's too late to end the world and renew it today, methinks[1]) we're suddenly living on the infinite flat world, under the 'new rules'.  Which we may wish to try to derive if we're not simultaneously 'converted' to imagine that things are exactly the same and things have always been like that.

But then there's no stable foundation for anything.  Where do you go with that?  I mean, one day it might be inexcusable to wear mixed fabrics and the next it wouldn't be?

Simpler to at least imagine that (until and unless we're provoked to think otherwise) there are hard and fast impersonal rules to the universe, which might need investigating and interpreting, but otherwise aren't at the whim of something/someone outside those rules.  Theosophy, OTOH, really only allows the interpretation (to as much or as little ultimate success as the mundane counterpart).  I don't believe there's much in the way of Practical Theosophising able to be done.  (Outside of Discworld, natch.)

Wrong, faith is belving with out seeing, or really knowing, you, by definition are saying
"if I cant prove it, it don't exist"
thats faith that if its not there where you can see it, then it don't exist
you put your faith in evince and that if we cant find God right now, it means he cant exist, ecen when history shows there are plenty of things we could not proved existed in till recently

As far as I am concerned I'm not saying "It [i.e. God] doesn't exist", but I'm certainly not assuming He does.  I'm more in a "If I can't prove it then I can't do anything useful with the given hypothesis" camp.  I think a hard-line no-God position is a... stance... that I see flaws in.  But I don't believe I've seen too many people with that stance in this thread.

[1] Maliciously ignoring temporal omnipotetencies there.

[Realmfighter]

-snip-

To cut this short, I think the real issue I'm taking with your premise is that, even with a full and complete list of every actual mechanism that makes the universe run, this thing would not be trivial to implement.

What's stopping you or me from just making up a complete system of physics from scratch and simulating a universe right now in 100 lines of code or less? It doesn't have to look or behave anything like ours. The physical laws can be utter hogwash, just as long as they are self-consistent.

I think there's a fundamental element missing here. I don't think a simple system can truly contain a more complicated one within itself, and still be called simple.

Maybe the user interface would be simple. But the interface is just a small piece of the system.

I really think a computer that would actually be capable of doing this would be indistinguishable from an unimaginably enormous cybergod.

And by then we've settled the issue of religion. God isn't in the machine. God /is/ the machine.

The issue isn't whether or not it's feasible; It's whether or not it's possible. Saying that God can know everything means in itself that God can model the entire universe in his mind, and if someone claims it as true then you can use it in an argument.

[Starver]

Yeah, I bet it's like that "you can't..." Like licking your elbow.  You know you can't but you try, just in case...

I can lick my own elbow.  (On a good day, at least.  It's a close call, admittedly.)

That is all.  I'm really adding nothing to this thread by announcing this, of course.

[XXSockXX]

Yeah, I bet it's like that "you can't..." Like licking your elbow.  You know you can't but you try, just in case...

I can lick my own elbow.  (On a good day, at least.  It's a close call, admittedly.)

I hope you did not severe any body parts to do so. That would be cheating, you know.

[Argembarger]

The issue isn't whether or not it's feasible; It's whether or not it's possible. Saying that God can know everything means in itself that God can model the entire universe in his mind, and if someone claims it as true then you can use it in an argument.

A god would either have to have a way to store information in a way that takes up no space, or otherwise keep it outside of the universe.

The first way seems impossible if the god is inhabiting the same universe it is tracking, unless the "abstract model" is indistinguishable from the thing itself. So, unless "god is the machine", I'ma argue it can't be done. Although admittedly, being some kind of god would help me see it from a perspective that isn't rooted in what I think I know about the universe (information requires space, entropy, chaos theory, black hole, !!science buzzwords!!, if(needs_to_read_more_books(me) == true) { stop talking; } else { blabber; } etc)

The second one challenges the definition of "universe", I guess. We can get multiverse-y. If we aren't the only system or we are a some subset of the real system, then anything goes probably and it becomes really hard to constructively communicate about it

Interesting discussion 'round these parts. Maybe I should have lurked more before just jumping in waving my pants around, but eh, fun times.