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[Hiiri]

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.

Er, this applies to pretty much everything. You can mix & match atheism and humanism, atheism and nazism, christianity and humanism, christianity and nazism. (Do you really capitalize christianity and nazism in english?? And english too???)

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

I strongly believe in science. I believe science can, and will, explain all natural phenomena. I also believe, however, that science will never be able to give you the experience of standing next to a river, fishing for trout. It will never give you the experience of being in another's arms. It will never give you the experience of triumph, of overcoming significant odds to achieve victory.

Every point you make is, to me, the opposite. Standing next to a river, knowing about the mechanics how nature works, is much more awe-inspiring than any supernatural claim you can come up with. Not to mention you need science to be able to fish those trout. But, I guess this could depend on how our individual brains are wired.

Science will never give you the experience of being in another's arms. True, but science never made a soccer goal either. I don't know why you think science should give you this feeling, when that's not the purpose...? If you're implying that religion does, it doesn't, you first have to add a community around that religion, THEN you might get that feeling. It's the community part that's important, not the religion.

And most of all, science gives the most powerful experience of triumph, of overcoming significant odds to achieve victory. Flying to the Moon and Mars. Curing diseases of the world. Feeding the hungry. I can't even begin to imagine how religion could possible give these experiences.

Edit: Desperate attempt at fixing grammar.

[k33n]

@ Wolfy


Firstly, regarding god(s):

An argument from order and laws of physics is not in favor of a theistic creator entity. Firstly, if we suppose that the universe is too complicated and orderly to come from "nothing", then using an omnipotent all-powerful all-knowing planner and watcher of reality as an explanation is without merit. Consider: Where did god come from?  if he has always existed, then it a better explanation that the cosmos has as well; if he came from nothing, then why not the cosmos also?; If you say we can not know then you are blinded and chained by your dogma.

Regarding souls:

Ask yourself, what is a soul?

We have yet to prove that a soul does or does not exist. However, what we do know eliminates the common conception of a soul and leaves little room for the religious definition. Your memories, experiences shaping your personality, the lense of your perception, your wants, the love you feel for those close to you, what you care about in life, your concept of right and wrong are all products of the structure and chemistry of your brain. This is not up for debate: the entire body of medicine and neuroscience confirms this. People who suffer brain injuries can become different people, lose memories and not recognize there children. Brain tumors have turned caring people into murderers. Dementia erodes and destroys the person who was once there.

The brain does not survive death. Therefore, all of the aforementioned does not survive death. We can say this with confidence and accuracy. What then is the soul? All that is left - if it indeed exists - is pure consciousness: a non-local point of being, without meaning, without emotion, without thought, without love, without sense, without experience.

Would you still consider this a soul?

[Argembarger]

>Strange Loops

[Micro102]

It's a vision from the flying spaghetti monster!

[Wolfy]

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?

Free will never said you would not be influenced by out side force, just that it is you coming to the decision and nothing says ?"you will like pizza" yes eating it will lead you there but just becuse you chocse to eat pizza dont mean you dont have free will

An argument from order and laws of physics is not in favor of a theistic creator entity.

why not? why would an intelligent being not create rules and regulations, we do it.
I disagree with this big time.
what makes you think God = cant make sense?
\

Firstly, if we suppose that the universe is too complicated and orderly to come from "nothing", then using an omnipotent all-powerful all-knowing planner and watcher of reality as an explanation is without merit. Consider: Where did god come from?  if he has always existed, then it a better explanation that the cosmos has as well; if he came from nothing, then why not the cosmos also?; If you say we can not know then you are blinded and chained by your dogma.

It's a chicken and an egg thing how ever, if we assume it can be created with out a God, then so could it be created WITH a God
No mater which one you take we can agure well why cant the other one have happen?
and then we both will "claim" this one is more likely to happen but the fact is we dont know the odds, we dont have any idea which is more likely, saying we do is liying to our selfs

your adding stuff to your side due to bias thinking "A god would not have a universe of laws" (why is there ANY reason to think this)
How come the unversed can exist form nothing, but not God, Why MUST the universe just always exist be the awnser?
to use your own words If you say we can not know then you are blinded and chained by your dogma.

The brain does not survive death. Therefore, all of the aforementioned does not survive death. We can say this with confidence and accuracy. What then is the soul? All that is left - if it indeed exists - is pure consciousness: a non-local point of being, without meaning, without emotion, without thought, without love, without sense, without experience.

The bible claims we will be reborn, maybe it means a new body, maybe it means a whole new life with out the memory of this one
Maybe we become like him and just "know evreything" in which case we don't need these things

Maybe there is something inside our brains, outside, or what not that science cant find yet, just like there was a time we could not find how our brains work (and still cant find out most) dont mean its not there, I'm not saying it is, just that history shows just becuse we cant find how it works dont mean it dose not

[Wolfy]

Now would this programmer care much for the humans that populate his simulation? In fact, he almost certainly wouldn't even know that there were humans living inside his computer, since he never bothered to look. And even if he found an intelligent species using a visualization program (he would probably not find any, since most of space does not contain life), he wouldn't be able to understand them (that would require learning a whole new language or more), much less read their minds, even less manipulate the simulation in such a way as to answer those beings who "somehow" think they know his name. So while it is relatively okay to believe that someone created the universe, it is absolutely not okay to think he is able to care about us.

The diffidence is in the simulation it just happen, with God he MADE each and everything possible
He made us in his image (this dont mean we look like him it could mean he made us with care, or in case of the simulation "spent a long time" coding us)
Your assuming who ever dose this thinks of this as "just a simulation" and is of human feelings which again the bibe claims God is not

[Telgin]

Free will never said you would not be influenced by out side force, just that it is you coming to the decision and nothing says ?"you will like pizza" yes eating it will lead you there but just becuse you chocse to eat pizza dont mean you dont have free will

Of course your decision to eat pizza was itself influenced by an enormously long chain of events.  If you subscribe to the idea of determinism (which I do), then everything is a direct consequence of some action before it.  Every single decision I make is a direct consequence of my experiences and brain structure.  It's entirely mechanical.

Even taking that aside, if one believes that God knows everything that will happen, I'd say it's pretty hard to make an argument that we have free will since we're bound to do what He knows we will do anyway.  And He's the one who set up the future, so He's basically mandated everything that has and will happen.  We never got a say in the matter.

[Wolfy]

Of course your decision to eat pizza was itself influenced by an enormously long chain of events.  If you subscribe to the idea of determinism (which I do), then everything is a direct consequence of some action before it.  Every single decision I make is a direct consequence of my experiences and brain structure.  It's entirely mechanical.

but we dont belive that, thats the whole point of "free will"
thats what we belive

Even taking that aside, if one believes that God knows everything that will happen, I'd say it's pretty hard to make an argument that we have free will since we're bound to do what He knows we will do anyway.  And He's the one who set up the future, so He's basically mandated everything that has and will happen.  We never got a say in the matter.

god sees every reality, every possible out come at once, so there are a lot of ways
A. assuming there is only "one" unversed
he merrily goes to look at the future, like we will one day, us going to see the future allows us to know it, but dont me we forced it, he sees the future, not makes. he dont "set up the future" while he could he gives everything its will of its own
B. If there are multiple, still the same except he sees all of them, and they are no influnced by which one he "made" but what choices we and living things make

Where do you get the idea becuse God knows the future means he set it up? time travel or even just being out side of time s not a new thing, heck science fiction, and even theroys of science believe this to be possible, even with out a God.

[inteuniso]

I strongly believe in science. I believe science can, and will, explain all natural phenomena. I also believe, however, that science will never be able to give you the experience of standing next to a river, fishing for trout. It will never give you the experience of being in another's arms. It will never give you the experience of triumph, of overcoming significant odds to achieve victory.

I disagree.
You do not have to believe in god or whatever to do things or appreciate things.

Didn't say you had to believe in god or whatever.

And I agree with what you say. I'm just saying that it's important to enjoy life, while appreciating the science behind it. I was just giving examples of personally enjoyable experiences: everyone has their own activities to relax and to stop thinking (or at least not think as much).

I personally believe that every event that has a probability of happening happens. We may not be in the universe where it happens, but it happens. We cannot control what happens when, but we can influence the probability of certain events, which in turn affects the probability of other events. Math and science govern the multiverse in an incredibly chaotic fashion, but one that satisfies all possible conditions and outcomes. I try to be as open-minded as possible, and I know that people always appreciate an act of kindness, even if they don't actively show it. I have a huge range of personal beliefs, and I know that they will change over time: I only hope that they will change for the better as I learn more about existence.

[Telgin]

but we dont belive that, thats the whole point of "free will"
thats what we belive

If that's what you choose to believe, then so be it.

Everything we know about the brain points toward it being a machine.  Its behavior is described by electrical and chemical interactions between neurons.  These are things that follow the laws of physics and thus are well described as deterministic events (quantum mechanics aren't a factor at this scale).  This would lead, without evidence to the contrary, to the conclusion that all decisions are ultimately made based on the physics of the universe.  That's why I believe in determinism.

The only alternative would be that our "soul" is somehow able to bypass this requirement, but then that places a lot of doubt on the need for a brain in the first place and so I don't really buy it.

god sees every reality, every possible out come at once, so there are a lot of ways
A. assuming there is only "one" unversed
he merrily goes to look at the future, like we will one day, us going to see the future allows us to know it, but dont me we forced it, he sees the future, not makes. he dont "set up the future" while he could he gives everything its will of its own
B. If there are multiple, still the same except he sees all of them, and they are no influnced by which one he "made" but what choices we and living things make

See, but this would require God to not know everything.  If you believe that, great, but every Christian sect that I know of at least believes that He does indeed know everything.  Just knowing each possible future isn't enough: He has to know which one will be the true one else He doesn't know everything.

Where do you get the idea becuse God knows the future means he set it up? time travel or even just being out side of time s not a new thing, heck science fiction, and even theroys of science believe this to be possible, even with out a God.

It follows from the idea that everything is a consequence of its history.  If everything happens for a reason, which I think most people agree on, then that means that the future is set.  Every event that happens right now causes the events that happen in the next instant, continuing on into infinity.

If that's true, and God is the one who initiated it all, and God knows everything, then that means He knew how history would play out when He initiated it.  And apparently He was satisfied with it, or else He'd have done it differently.  Thus he set it up.

Oh, and I'd be absolutely astonished if it turned out time travel was possible, due to causality violation.

[Wolfy]

See, but this would require God to not know everything.  If you believe that, great, but every Christian sect that I know of at least believes that He does indeed know everything.  Just knowing each possible future isn't enough: He has to know which one will be the true one else He doesn't know everything.

He DOSE he knows which one you pick cause he can see the future, but he did not "make you" you picked it, thats one way of looking at it
another is he knows us so well

Just like I can forsee what my kid will decide to do, it dont me I picked it for them and while my actions may influnce it, in the end THEY picked it

We can predict what a friend is going to do, what would a being that is so many more times smarter then us do?
Know the horse is going to win?

Even if he DOSE know what we will pick, we SILL picked t, he did not force us to pick it

It follows from the idea that everything is a consequence of its history.  If everything happens for a reason, which I think most people agree on, then that means that the future is set.  Every event that happens right now causes the events that happen in the next instant, continuing on into infinity.

but lets assumed that while yes time can be moved around in its "stuck for us"
Yes the future is set in the fact that if you go there you see our actions
but WE PICKED those actions, its not like God made the future and then said "Wolfy is going to tap dance"
I picked to

If that's true, and God is the one who initiated it all, and God knows everything, then that means He knew how history would play out when He initiated it.  And apparently He was satisfied with it, or else He'd have done it differently.  Thus he set it up.

Wrong, giving us free will he allows us to change our futures, your assuming
A. time cant be changed. what proof do you have that we cant just
B. God is not capable of "knowing everything there is to know" (the true meaning of optimenit, and means knows "all" there is to know) but no where dose it say what that "All is" maybe he dont know which choices we make unless he looks to the future
Maybe some things cant be known by anyone

Your assuming also that God can even

your assuming if God initiated it a diffident way, him doing that is what ends up picking what we do, I believe he mad the unverse, and WE get to pick
He may of made 50 worlds
and each one is a blank slate, nothing about picking world one form him means that it will happen

your also assuming God controls the future

Can he do these things? could he mess with it? YES, but the idea is he has giving us free will and so dose not do these things
A. "set up" the future in a diffident away, if we do have free will and he dont get in our way of it then how CAN he set it up? he lets us pick
He is all powerful and all knowing, but that means knowin all that CAN be known, and doing all that CAN be done.
Never says what CAN be known and done and not.

[Telgin]

He DOSE he knows which one you pick cause he can see the future, but he did not "make you" you picked it, thats one way of looking at it
another is he knows us so well

Just like I can forsee what my kid will decide to do, it dont me I picked it for them and while my actions may influnce it, in the end THEY picked it

We can predict what a friend is going to do, what would a being that is so many more times smarter then us do?
Know the horse is going to win?

Even if he DOSE know what we will pick, we SILL picked t, he did not force us to pick it

We choose an action in the same way that a car's engine chooses to have a piston go up or down.  The decision comes completely from circumstance and mechanics.  By designing an engine in a particular way, you've basically forced it to work a certain way.  By designing our brains in a certain way and orchestrating history, God has effectively forced us to choose certain things.  You could say you still made the decision, but it's ultimately pointless because you were always going to make that decision.

It's different from knowing someone well because while you can estimate and predict, God knows.

but lets assumed that while yes time can be moved around in its "stuck for us"
Yes the future is set in the fact that if you go there you see our actions
but WE PICKED those actions, its not like God made the future and then said "Wolfy is going to tap dance"
I picked to

You chose to tap dance because of the situation you were in.  You were somewhere where tap dancing was appropriate or expected, and you knew how to tap dance, hadn't done it in a whlie and realized that it would make you feel happier so you chose to do it.  See, that's the thing.  Everything you do is done for one reason or another.  If you didn't know how to tap dance, you wouldn't choose to do so.  If you're not choosing to do things because of your experiences and abilities, then how are you choosing them?  Randomly?  That's not free will either.

How God factors into this isn't immediately obvious, but again, if He's the one who sets up your surroundings then ultimately He's the one who is going to be making those influences that cause you to do things.  But unlike setting up such a situation for someone you know well, God knows with absolute certainty how specific events are going to affect you and what consequences they will have on your future decisions.

Wrong, giving us free will he allows us to change our futures, your assuming
A. time cant be changed. what proof do you have that we cant just
B. God is not capable of "knowing everything there is to know" (the true meaning of optimenit, and means knows "all" there is to know) but no where dose it say what that "All is" maybe he dont know which choices we make unless he looks to the future
Maybe some things cant be known by anyone

...what evidence do you have that we can "change time?"  I assume you mean time travel or something like that, which I'm pretty sure any self respecting physicist today will admit is not likely to be possible.

And you can argue semantics, but to me, knowing everything means just that: there's nothing God doesn't know.  Nothing.

your assuming if God initiated it a diffident way, him doing that is what ends up picking what we do, I believe he mad the unverse, and WE get to pick
He may of made 50 worlds
and each one is a blank slate, nothing about picking world one form him means that it will happen

Um... sorry, having trouble following you here.

your also assuming God controls the future

Can he do these things? could he mess with it? YES, but the idea is he has giving us free will and so dose not do these things
A. "set up" the future in a diffident away, if we do have free will and he dont get in our way of it then how CAN he set it up? he lets us pick
He is all powerful and all knowing, but that means knowin all that CAN be known, and doing all that CAN be done.
Never says what CAN be known and done and not.

Well, if you choose to believe that God doesn't know the future then it's less of a problem.  I admit I don't know if the Bible states that He does know the future, but it's pretty heavily implied that God knows everything that's going to happen.

I'm not saying that God reaches down and flips switches in your brain or whatever to make you do things at any given moment.  No, I'm saying that when God created the universe He knew everything that would happen from that point on and that included every decision you've ever made.  That makes your decisions pointless and hollow.

The real reason I'm arguing this of course is that it's pretty silly for God to judge people based on their behavior and decisions when He knows what they're going to do and is in control of their life circumstances.

If you don't believe God knows the future then discussing this point is probably pointless.

[lemon10]

First off wolfy: I know that you are pretty annoyed at people telling you to spell better by now, but just by using firefox or chrome and their inbuilt spellcheckers, you can eliminate pretty much all of your spelling errors.

He DOSE he knows which one you pick cause he can see the future, but he did not "make you" you picked it, thats one way of looking at it
another is he knows us so well

Just like I can forsee what my kid will decide to do, it dont me I picked it for them and while my actions may influnce it, in the end THEY picked it

We can predict what a friend is going to do, what would a being that is so many more times smarter then us do?
Know the horse is going to win?

Even if he DOSE know what we will pick, we SILL picked t, he did not force us to pick it

When he created the universe, he set it up knowing exactly what everyone would do, and what exactly would for its whole history (assuming that you believe he is omniscient that is). He did this in the exact same way when you type up a program and tell it to print: "Hello World" if X is 10, and you set X to 10, then it will print "Hello World", just like you knew it would.
Sure, you "chose" to do whatever you are going to do, just like the program "chose" to print "Hello World".
Yes, you are billions of times more complex then a program like that, but since god is omniscient, it doesn't matter how complex you are.

but lets assumed that while yes time can be moved around in its "stuck for us"
Yes the future is set in the fact that if you go there you see our actions
but WE PICKED those actions, its not like God made the future and then said "Wolfy is going to tap dance"
I picked to

But he did. When he was creating the universe, he looked at it, and knew that in 2012 you were going to tap dance. He could have slightly altered how he created the universe, or slightly changed any of his interventions (which assuming he was omniscient, he also knew what he was going to do even before he created the universe) and could have easily stopped you from tap dancing if he wanted to.

Wrong, giving us free will he allows us to change our futures, your assuming
A. time cant be changed. what proof do you have that we cant just
B. God is not capable of "knowing everything there is to know" (the true meaning of optimenit, and means knows "all" there is to know) but no where dose it say what that "All is" maybe he dont know which choices we make unless he looks to the future
Maybe some things cant be known by anyone

If he doesn't know everything all the time, then he isn't omniscient.
It doesn't matter if its impossible to know, if he doesn't know it anyways then he isn't omniscient. Similarly, if he chooses not to know everything, while he has the potential to be omniscient, then he really isn't.

Your assuming also that God can even

your assuming if God initiated it a diffident way, him doing that is what ends up picking what we do, I believe he mad the unverse, and WE get to pick
He may of made 50 worlds
and each one is a blank slate, nothing about picking world one form him means that it will happen

your also assuming God controls the future

Can he do these things? could he mess with it? YES, but the idea is he has giving us free will and so dose not do these things
A. "set up" the future in a diffident away, if we do have free will and he dont get in our way of it then how CAN he set it up? he lets us pick
He is all powerful and all knowing, but that means knowin all that CAN be known, and doing all that CAN be done.
Never says what CAN be known and done and not.

Your first few sentences in this quote are a bit hard to read, and so I might be getting the meaning wrong.

God doesn't control the future. He made the universe, and set everything into motion, the physical laws (that he created) control the future. But he doesn't need to control it to have chosen exactly how it would turn out when he created it.

Knowing what exactly what will happen isn't a active choice on his part. It is done as long as he is omniscient.

FAKEEDIT: Gah, beaten by telgin.

[kaijyuu]

Are we slowly arriving at the conclusion god is a coder, and the universe is his code running?

Ultimately, that's essentially what it'd *have* to be with a creator deity. Perhaps not "code" as we know it, but logic and rules and whatnot, yes.

[Hiiri]

Are we slowly arriving at the conclusion god is a coder, and the universe is his code running?

No way, that would be an unfalsifiable hypothesis. We can't have one of those.