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What's your opinion on free will?

I am religious and believe in free will
- 71 (27.7%)
I am religious and do not believe in free will
- 10 (3.9%)
I am not religious and believe in free will
- 114 (44.5%)
I am not religious and do not believe in free will
- 61 (23.8%)

Total Members Voted: 251


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Author Topic: Railgun and Spirituality Discussion  (Read 687400 times)

Grimlocke

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4530 on: January 12, 2016, 01:50:28 am »

Heh, its that silly discussion about what an atheist is again that crops up in every single religious discussion ever.

Atheism = Not believing there is a god.
Which is not the same as 'Believing there is no god'.

That last one is semantic bunk made up by religious fundamentalist crackpots to try and put atheism on their own level.

And none of the semantics and silly mis-definitions even matter. Fact is that no part of reality points to any kind of deity existing, and believing there is one anyway is a matter of faith.

Trying to win silly online discussions with an endless stream of fallacies and wordplay really doesn't do anyone any favors.
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Rolan7

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4531 on: January 12, 2016, 03:07:04 am »

Also there are anti-theists, who claim there are no gods.  Most atheists don't claim that, instead acknowledging that it's technically possible for gods to exist.

Though not necessarily that any specific god is possible.  Many definitions of god are self-contradictory.

Atheism doesn't involve any claim, though.  It's simply not making a claim about gods.  A lack of religion.
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TD1

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4532 on: January 12, 2016, 03:28:41 am »

Give Rolan a cookie.

An atheistic cookie.

I'm fairly certain it doesn't exist, but if it does, Rolan is gonna be a happy camper :P
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Rolan7

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4533 on: January 12, 2016, 03:36:27 am »

Any cookie is atheist, as cookies have no belief.  Ironic, since they actually do have intelligent (well, sentient) creators!
Or it's a frustratingly paradoxical cookie.  If I believe I have it, I don't...  If I don't believe in it, there it is.  Oscillating in and out of existence at the speed of thought has got to be harnessable as an energy source, somehow.  Maybe the cookie is magnetic?
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She/they
No justice: no peace.
Quote from: Fallen London, one Unthinkable Hope
This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

TD1

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4534 on: January 12, 2016, 03:38:57 am »

....
That cookie just got very complicated. The power of philosophy!

As for it being harnessable as an energy source, that depends on whether oscillating in and out of existence creates energy. You could rig it up to a pressure plate, I suppose, in that if you had enough cookies oscillating at once, the weight would press the plates like pistons.

Need a lot of cookies though.
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Grimlocke

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4535 on: January 12, 2016, 04:18:27 am »

One could potentially make a hand grenade of uncertain holiness!
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4536 on: January 12, 2016, 06:29:35 am »

Is there a word for someone who simply doesn't care about religion?
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wobbly

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4537 on: January 12, 2016, 06:39:34 am »

Atheism = Not believing there is a god.
Which is not the same as 'Believing there is no god'.

That last one is semantic bunk made up by religious fundamentalist crackpots to try and put atheism on their own level.
On this I'm going to have to disagree. Trouble is I meet a lot of atheists who claim to be the 1st sentence, yet have an attitude to the topic of religion that is a closer match to the 2nd sentence. Once you start mocking the religious as stupid, gullible or ignorant you're more in line with the second (in my own opinion) & a lot of atheists do behave that way.
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Arx

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4538 on: January 12, 2016, 06:43:15 am »

Is there a word for someone who simply doesn't care about religion?

Apatheist gets thrown around a bit.
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TheBiggerFish

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4539 on: January 12, 2016, 06:44:13 am »

Apatheist.  I like that name.
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TD1

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4540 on: January 12, 2016, 07:25:55 am »

You're just one ap away from an atheist. Download today! :P

Atheism = Not believing there is a god.
Which is not the same as 'Believing there is no god'.

That last one is semantic bunk made up by religious fundamentalist crackpots to try and put atheism on their own level.
On this I'm going to have to disagree. Trouble is I meet a lot of atheists who claim to be the 1st sentence, yet have an attitude to the topic of religion that is a closer match to the 2nd sentence. Once you start mocking the religious as stupid, gullible or ignorant you're more in line with the second (in my own opinion) & a lot of atheists do behave that way.
Urgh, not really. I do think belief in a god is rather silly, but that's not because I'm certain there is no god. Again, it comes down to the probabilities involved, and the internal problems of the religion when it tries to conform to reality (and where it doesn't.)

Thinking something is silly doesn't mean you don't think they may on a veeeeery long shot be right, is what I'm trying to say.
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wierd

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4541 on: January 12, 2016, 07:40:06 am »

Did somebody say "probabilities"?

Did you know that it is actually more probable that the universe is a simulation, than real?  It's true!

http://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/BostromReview.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnl6nY8YKHs


And some other fun things..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chfoo9NBEow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp4NkItgf0E

« Last Edit: January 12, 2016, 07:50:56 am by wierd »
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TD1

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4542 on: January 12, 2016, 07:52:33 am »

But given we define "real," roughly, as what is there, and what is there is simulation, then the simulation is real and you can't say that it's more likely a simulation than real.
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wierd

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4543 on: January 12, 2016, 07:55:00 am »

That does not explain the existence of the error correcting block codes being detected. ;)

I refer you to my prior (admittedly wall o text sized) shpeel about "machine god".

Creator god does not need to be sentient to satisfy all of the criteria normally ascribed to creator god. Machine god satisfies just fine, and would be true in a simulation universe.

Also, the simulation argument goes like this:

There are three possible outcomes of technological advancement of a civilization.

1) For some reason, it is unable to progress to a point where ancestor simulations are possible. (See Fermi's paradox, and various others.)
2) If we assume that it is possible that they can achieve the technology to run ancestor simulations, then it is possible that universally, all civilizations with this theoretical capacity decide that it is without merit to do so, and so don't do so.
3) If we reject those two, then each real civilization is able to spawn many orders of magnitude more simulated civilizations, making the probability that any given civilization will be a simulated one highly likely.  (EG, one out of every hundred billion civilizations will be a simulation, if we assume that each real civilization is able to run one hundred billion other civilizations as simulations.)

When you throw in curious things like the error correcting block codes being found, and other curious hints that lean toward our being inside a simulation, with the simulation hypothesis, it looks pretty intriguing.

Is it still a sensible idea to pray to machine god? No. Machine god does not give a flying white pony ride about your worship.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2016, 08:04:48 am by wierd »
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Antioch

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Re: Religion and Spirituality Discussion: I am Enlightened by my Euphoria
« Reply #4544 on: January 12, 2016, 08:08:26 am »

The "who is atheist and who is agnostic" debate is always a bit tiring.

My position:

1. It is wrong to believe that for which there is insufficient evidence.
2. There is insufficient evidence for the existence of a god.
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