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[Egan_BW]

That sounds like a belief, so I reject it.

[Teneb]

That sounds like a belief, so I reject it.

You were the Chosen One! You were supposed to bring balance to atheism, not cast it into disbelief!

[Egan_BW]

Just remember to always believe in yourself and absolutely nothing else ever.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[wierd]

Thats a bad photoshop and you know it.

[Loud Whispers]

Thats a bad photoshop and you know it.

but I don't believe it

[IcyTea31]

As the number of folds in a katana approaches the infinite, its sharpness begins to reach such an incredible point that it can cut through nothingness as surely as somethingness

But wait, if you cleave nothingness in twain, won't there then be something? Tozan might have been onto something with his three pounds of hemp...good for making twine?

More seriously, I consider myself agnostic. As a child, christianity seemed to be self-evident (even if Finnish culture is generally very secular and very private about religion outside of celebrations like christmas and easter). However, as my worldview expanded and I learned about other beliefs, I started wondering about how so many people are so certain about their beliefs while some are so certain of other, incompatible beliefs. And that went further: gods, as described, are omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent etc.; how are such beings at all comprehensible to humans? If there is a god, surely it is something so incomprehensible, you couldn't make any meaningful description of it or its desires? However, an omnipotent being, by definition, must also be comprehensible to humans. This causes a logical paradox, meaning any god must exist outside of logic, if at all.

As I'm unwilling to abandon logic, it being an important cornerstone of any meaningful knowledge, in my opinion the existence or nonexistence of a god is meaningless for all practical purposes. Due to chaos theory, we can't even sensibly attribute any event to a god, as the inherent random fuckery of the universe could just as well be to blame; determinism and nondeterminism are functionally equivalent.

Spoiler: A mathematical thought exercise (click to show/hide)

You have one of two black-box functions, F or G, and you want to know which one it is.

You don't know anything about F.

You know that G always returns a positive value.

You enter an arbitrarily large but finite number of inputs into your function, and they all return a positive value. Can you be certain which function you have after doing this?

The problem in this thought exercise is that while F is not falsifiable and G is, failing to falsify G doesn't prove it true. This is the problem I have with some of the most certain of atheists. Yes, while science has been able to explain pretty much everything that used to be explained by religion, it can't be used to logically disprove something that doesn't follow meaningful logic in the first place.

[McTraveller]

That's just Godel's incompleteness theorem, stated slightly differently: essentially, if you have a system of thought that is power enough (like logic), there are things that are true but aren't possible to prove.

As for how "incomprehensible gods" can make themselves known to humans - basically most religions say that the gods communicate something to us, not that we figure them out. I mean in the Old Testament, God shows up in odd ways (burning bushes, columns of fire and smoke) as well as in the appearance of people (Hagar, Jacob, the figure in the fiery furnace).  God shows up as a voice.  In the Net Testament, God shows up by becoming a human.  After all, if you are an "omni" god, I don't see anything inconsistent about such a god being able to have aspects of itself appear comprehensible.

Personally the only thing I don't understand about non-theistic religions is the rationale for "should" statements; the universe has no mechanism for assigning merit, it only defines what is physically realizable.  So I feel that non-theistic world views that say "we should preserve the planet" are hollow. There is no reason other than "I will get along better with my fellow creatures if I go with the flow."  I can accept that, but I can't accept that there would be a "should" in any statement about behavior without something outside of humanity and physics to assign that merit.

[IcyTea31]

Yes, by definition, it is within the power of an omnipotent being to communicate comprehensibly with humans. However, as humans aren't omnipotent, its worldview must be incomprehensibly alien to us. So much must be lost in the "translation" between worldviews that we can't verify who is actually communicating. What if the burning bush was some other being pretending to be God and had its own agenda?

If only God had left a cryptographic hash lying around somewhere...

There is also the logical paradox of a being being comprehensible and incomprehensible at the same time, which leads to me concluding that any god must exist outside of logic as we understand it.

[Il Palazzo]

Doctor: Your lungs are busted. You should stop smoking.
McTraveller: I can't accept that there would be a "should" in any statement about behavior without something outside of humanity and physics to assign that merit.

[McTraveller]

Doctor: Your lungs are busted. You should stop smoking.
McTraveller: I can't accept that there would be a "should" in any statement about behavior without something outside of humanity and physics to assign that merit.

That's not a statement of morality though.

That's a statement that is really shorthand for "you should stop smoking if you want to increase your probability of living longer with healthy lungs".  I have no problem with statements like that, which are basically statements of consequence, not of merit.

[Il Palazzo]

The one about preserving the planet is also about consequences.

[McTraveller]

I'm not talking about that kind of should - I'm talking about "You should preserve the planet because it is the right thing to do" kind of "should".  It seems like I'm having trouble describing what I mean... does that help clarify?

Another example: I don't have a problem with "If you want to the human race to survive more easily, take care of the planet."  I do have a problem with "We should ensure the human race survives," unless you have a reason why having humanity is better than not having it.  That's what I mean about "merit" - how do you decide something is "better" than something else.  I don't mean more preferred, or more pleasant - I mean better.

Religious systems tend to provide a basis on which to make such evaluations. Physics, not so much.  Philosophy - well especially post-modern thought has a significant relativism about it which makes it difficult to use as a basis for merit ranking.  It seems to pick as its general assumption that "self actualization" or something similar is the property to maximize, but it has no unbiased rationale for choosing that as the best property to maximize.

[nenjin]

I'm not talking about that kind of should - I'm talking about "You should preserve the planet because it is the right thing to do" kind of "should".  It seems like I'm having trouble describing what I mean... does that help clarify?

Logically (not morally or ethically) you should "save the planet" because without one, the human race cannot survive? Unless the very concept of survival is in question.

[wierd]

More the "ethical" component in say--

Not destroying the commons.


There is a big field of yummy grass, and you have hungry livestock-- why not let them graze on it?  Why "should" you not?

(because a number of reasons you may not be aware of, such as-- that grass prevents water erosion, that would then destroy your house and many others then next time it rains, for example-- OR, because killing all the grass with your reckless misuse of resources like that means other people cannot make use of the grass field, etc.)

This is the most applicable to "why cant i just----" type rhetorical questions regarding ethics. 


The real thing though, is that you do not need a higher power to have a code of ethics, and you don't need beliefs of any kind to support such a system.

There are real consequences to actions that can be verified very rigidly. Even if you are a psychopathic self-fullfillment seeker, there are reasons to engage ethically, because failure to do so has negative consequences for you eventually.