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Author Topic: Atheists  (Read 408338 times)

Vester

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1365 on: September 10, 2009, 07:24:19 am »

Since there is/are no god(s), the only thing that matters, such as in nature, is natural selection and survival of the fittest.  It's the only way humanity can logically survive... by evolving.  This means that those that don't want to change will find themselves in a position of extinction.  That pretty much defies communistic convention and "feel good" policies.  If we continue to coddle those that will do no work, they raise children that do no work... you can see where that ends up I hope.

The argument that, if god does not exist then life has no meaning is extraordinarily bad.

You, as a conscious thinking person are free to reach for the stars and make meaning where there had been none before. That is our gift, and our curse, to be beyond the animal and capable of freeing ourselves from the endless Darwinian cycle of predator and prey, yet able to stare into the endless skies and see how vast and empty and devoid of inherent meaning the universe is. We can succumb to this nihilism, or we can create for ourselves, individually, a purpose, a role to play, however small, and find meaning within, rather than without.

That's very poetic.
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Jackrabbit

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1366 on: September 10, 2009, 07:26:38 am »

It's how we should live our lives, it's true.

'Cept I believe in God. But still, it's a very well worded way of saying 'life is what you make it', which I've always believed.
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Vester

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1367 on: September 10, 2009, 07:27:56 am »

It's how we should live our lives, it's true.

'Cept I believe in God. But still, it's a very well worded way of saying 'life is what you make it', which I've always believed.

It's actually in the Lord's Prayer, that bit. The one that goes, "Your Kingdom Come/ your will be done/ on earth as it is in heaven."

We're supposed to make life the best it can, for ourselves and for other people. To quote Meat Loaf, heaven can wait.
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LegoLord

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1368 on: September 10, 2009, 07:50:40 am »

I share a lot of the same sentiments as the last few posts.  Though one of the nice ideas that Christianity and other religions have is that people who may have been cut short on opportunities (ex: kids with cancer) still have a chance to make the most of life even after death ('course, everyone else does, too.  Talking about heaven here).  Even if you don't believe it, it does sound like a nice concept, doesn't it?
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Jackrabbit

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1369 on: September 10, 2009, 07:52:00 am »

Why do you think its so popular? It's not the hymns, believe you me.
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Ampersand

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1370 on: September 10, 2009, 08:08:43 am »

Of course it sounds nice. But how things sound has never been my concern. The only issue that I am willing to discuss is whether or not it's true.
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Vester

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1371 on: September 10, 2009, 08:10:00 am »

Right. We should probably discuss how nice it would be somewhere else entirely. ;D
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Jackrabbit

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1372 on: September 10, 2009, 08:10:41 am »

Ha ha, I'm not. Whether or not it's true won't be proved for a looooong time. I merely dropped in to say a few words.

Obviously other people are willing to debate this. I'm sure you won't miss me.
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Andir

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1373 on: September 10, 2009, 12:52:24 pm »

Since there is/are no god(s), the only thing that matters, such as in nature, is natural selection and survival of the fittest.  It's the only way humanity can logically survive... by evolving.  This means that those that don't want to change will find themselves in a position of extinction.  That pretty much defies communistic convention and "feel good" policies.  If we continue to coddle those that will do no work, they raise children that do no work... you can see where that ends up I hope.

The argument that, if god does not exist then life has no meaning is extraordinarily bad.

You, as a conscious thinking person are free to reach for the stars and make meaning where there had been none before. That is our gift, and our curse, to be beyond the animal and capable of freeing ourselves from the endless Darwinian cycle of predator and prey, yet able to stare into the endless skies and see how vast and empty and devoid of inherent meaning the universe is. We can succumb to this nihilism, or we can create for ourselves, individually, a purpose, a role to play, however small, and find meaning within, rather than without.

That's very poetic.

A gift from nothing?  Seriously.  I fully understand and accept that we are random atomic particles that combined together in such a fashion that they survived all these years...  The iterations of homo-[suffix] that did not reproduce, fit in our environment or succeed over the other animals in this world have been mutating and or extinct for millions of years because they have to "survive."  If we discontinue this trend and accept everyone as an acceptable human being no matter what mutations or deformities they may have, we are defying this natural order of things.  You call it compassion, I call it ignorance.  Call me a bastard or an ass if you like.  That's the way the world we know it today has become.  The truth hurts.  There's no beauty in that.

Thinking that people are somehow different because you want them to be beyond that process doesn't make it so.  Humankind will ALWAYS compete with each other.  Marriage is one of those methods, believe it or not.  How can one assure that nobody else can procreate their genetic code with "your" mate?  Lock them into a lifelong commitment with the fear of a greater power through religion.  Now you say today marriage isn't so much a religious connection as it is convention?  How's that divorce rate?  Money, possessions, religion, etc.  All methods of attracting and maintaining said relationship.  If you truly think that humans are not competitive and should not be, break your marriage (or don't do it to begin with), stop buying birthday presents, cards, rings, etc... see if they stay with you.  You may have a few that bond for life and never stray, but I don't agree that would be a majority.

Human kind is still a primal animal with natural selection tendencies.  No amount of denial will fix that.

edit:  Also, life does have meaning.  Survival.  I never said it doesn't have meaning.  It just isn't the "feel good" meaning you want it to be.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2009, 12:55:28 pm by Andir »
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Leafsnail

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1374 on: September 10, 2009, 04:08:44 pm »

Quote
Hold it now. I never said it was radical brainwashing as the cracked article would have you believe, but I still think it will churn out "hard" (hostile-ish) atheists. Heh, following a link from that article, there's a disclaimer to the influx cracked readers "no we're not brainwashing". ROFL. They're not trying to anyway, but it can still have that sort of effect.
Is it really their fault if religion tends to collapse when you apply critical thinking to it?  Should they not bother to teach this vital skill just because this might cause the child to question their religion?
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He's omniscient, so he knows everything, it's probably tough to imagine, but he knows every bit of content without needing some UI. Since he's outside our measurement of time, he's got enough time to multitask and all.
So he knows exactly how the universe he created is going to unfold.  He knew Adam would take the apple in the garden of Eden (be it metaphorical or real) and he knew about every bad thing anyone would ever do.  And yet he still punishes people for these actions.  Why?  You could say "Free will" but isn't this a logical impossibility in the same way that it's a logical impossibility for him to microwave a burrito so hot he can't eat it?
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"Your Kingdom Come/ your will be done/ on earth as it is in heaven."
That's addressed to God, rather than us.  He's the only one who's opinion matters...
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How can one assure that nobody else can procreate their genetic code with "your" mate?  Lock them into a lifelong commitment with the fear of a greater power through religion.  Now you say today marriage isn't so much a religious connection as it is convention?  How's that divorce rate?
Yes, religion used to keep couples together.  Sure, they may be miserable, stuck with someone they no longer want to be with for their whole life, but hey, at least they aren't getting divorced!
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G-Flex

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1375 on: September 10, 2009, 04:31:27 pm »

Since there is/are no god(s), the only thing that matters, such as in nature, is natural selection and survival of the fittest.  It's the only way humanity can logically survive... by evolving.  This means that those that don't want to change will find themselves in a position of extinction.  That pretty much defies communistic convention and "feel good" policies.  If we continue to coddle those that will do no work, they raise children that do no work... you can see where that ends up I hope.

The argument that, if god does not exist then life has no meaning is extraordinarily bad.

You, as a conscious thinking person are free to reach for the stars and make meaning where there had been none before. That is our gift, and our curse, to be beyond the animal and capable of freeing ourselves from the endless Darwinian cycle of predator and prey, yet able to stare into the endless skies and see how vast and empty and devoid of inherent meaning the universe is. We can succumb to this nihilism, or we can create for ourselves, individually, a purpose, a role to play, however small, and find meaning within, rather than without.

That's very poetic.

A gift from nothing?  Seriously.  I fully understand and accept that we are random atomic particles that combined together in such a fashion that they survived all these years...  The iterations of homo-[suffix] that did not reproduce, fit in our environment or succeed over the other animals in this world have been mutating and or extinct for millions of years because they have to "survive."  If we discontinue this trend and accept everyone as an acceptable human being no matter what mutations or deformities they may have, we are defying this natural order of things.  You call it compassion, I call it ignorance.  Call me a bastard or an ass if you like.  That's the way the world we know it today has become.  The truth hurts.  There's no beauty in that.

Except that's not the truth.

Selecting who should live and who should die (or reproduce) isn't paying homage to natural selection; it's strictly artificial. Deciding who does or doesn't deserve help or compassion, or who does or doesn't deserve to reproduce, is a strictly artificial process. You aren't helping natural selection, you're engaging in artificial selection while calling it "natural".

Natural selection happens regardless of whether we want it to or not and regardless of who we do or don't help. Artificial selection is just a way of changing who is selected for. We can choose to select for people with "good" genes or those with "bad" genes, or neither. Either way, natural selection will still describe the process adequately, even if artificial selection is what's driving it.

Also, I hate to rain on your eugenics parade, but it's incredibly hard to even determine what are "bad genes", not to mention that the "deformities" aren't even necessarily congenital. If every "bad" genetic trait were so awful, they would have likely been selected against to a greater degree already, and genetics is complicated in ways you aren't even considering. Not everything follows a simple mendelian one-trait-one-gene dominant/recessive model. It's likely that very much of our genetics doesn't at all, not to mention how little we know of how some aspects of genetics work in general. Some genes can cause positive traits sometimes and negative traits other times, especially in conjunction with other genes or the environment, and who's "best fit" for survival in the first place depends largely on environmental circumstances.

Hell, even relatively-simple traits deserve a closer look than "is this a Bad Mutation?". Take sickle-cell disease. Nobody's going to tell you that sickle-cell disease is a nice thing to have, but it's fairly common in some segments of the population. Why? Because being a carrier for it helps protect against malaria, which is a serious problem in much of the world.

Also, you have traits which may seem detrimental to the individual but are good when the individual is considered part of a group. Example: Red-green colorblindness. Certainly, being red-green colorblind doesn't help an individual when considered on their own. However, I've heard argument that in a large group (for example, in hunter-gatherer society especially), having one or two colorblind people is actually advantageous; they perceive the world in a fundamentally different manner, so they're liable to notice a couple things the rest of the group doesn't, or more quickly. In this way, even though they have vision which is objectively "worse", they are still made unique and valuable to the group, in a seemingly paradoxical manner.

I would even argue that this applies to such traits as autism. For one thing, "autism" is such a broad term that you can never really eliminate it, since you have to draw the line somewhere at who you'd consider "autistic" and the genetic causes (if it's genetic) are probably impossible to isolate without completely screwing over something else. But let's say for the sake of argument you can; would it be a good idea? I say it wouldn't be. Yes, autism can be incredibly harmful and debilitating. On the other hand, autistic people sometimes tend to be extremely gifted in some areas (in the case of autistic savants, in a manner beyond what most people could ever achieve). Taking care of these people takes a toll on society as a whole when considered simplistically, but (aside from being, you know, humane) can also confer a benefit.


In other words, the sort of "let's decide who does and doesn't breed" philosophy you seem to prescribe to relies on an extremely oversimplified and naive understanding of a science that's still fairly young in the first place (genetics), and assumes far too much even about our ability to "eliminate" such traits.

You also sound like you'd presume that if a person has a serious congenital deformity, they aren't worth saving. This is senseless, because that same person could easily have other valuable traits, genetic or not. Stephen Hawking is a good example; if we assume (and this is a big assumption, although apparently not one you're beyond making) that his disability is congenital, and that his intellectual aptitude is also somewhat congenital, how do we decide if he's allowed to reproduce? Some sort of cost-benefit analysis based on barely-understood information?


Also: Most harmful genetic problems are recessive. The only way to eliminate these in a fashion that could be considered meaningful is to eliminate the carriers as well. Consider the fact that pretty much everyone is a carrier for several of these traits, and you realize that the only way to eliminate most negative traits is to either sterilize pretty much the entire human race, or spread some sort of magical nanovirus swarm around that edits everybody's DNA without harm. Of course, you can engage in genetic screening to make sure an embryo isn't homozygous for a recessive negative trait, but that still could be problematic in the ways I listed above, and also isn't what you were suggesting; it's a completely different argument.
« Last Edit: September 10, 2009, 04:39:44 pm by G-Flex »
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Andir

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1376 on: September 10, 2009, 06:05:29 pm »

Except that's not the truth.

Selecting who should live and who should die (or reproduce) isn't paying homage to natural selection; it's strictly artificial. Deciding who does or doesn't deserve help or compassion, or who does or doesn't deserve to reproduce, is a strictly artificial process. You aren't helping natural selection, you're engaging in artificial selection while calling it "natural".
I skimmed from this point on because I don't have a lot of time right now... but natural brain processes can still be determinate of natural selection.  Warm fuzzy feelings are a chemical process bread and even taught into us and passed along to our children.  The various diseases you mention may not be passed on, but children are born with resistances or adapt resistances to these given enough time and exposure.  So even a decision you make that may be based on a feeling could be taught or trained, but the chemical reaction that makes you feel good about it can evolve to be stronger or softer and how you react to events in life determine if you fail at the game.

I'm also not talking about killing people or deciding who can or cannot breed.  I don't know where you got that from.  Just not "helping" people get past their mutations.  If their mutations help them then they live on.  If they don't... they either eventually leave that trait behind through generations or it grows stronger.
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Idiom

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1377 on: September 10, 2009, 06:08:34 pm »

Quote
Hold it now. I never said it was radical brainwashing as the cracked article would have you believe, but I still think it will churn out "hard" (hostile-ish) atheists. Heh, following a link from that article, there's a disclaimer to the influx cracked readers "no we're not brainwashing". ROFL. They're not trying to anyway, but it can still have that sort of effect.
Is it really their fault if religion tends to collapse when you apply critical thinking to it?  Should they not bother to teach this vital skill just because this might cause the child to question their religion?
Never said they shouldn't bother or that it was their fault if it happens, but there are a lot of jerks who once they realize their previous understanding of the universe is full of holes, they snap to the "hard" position. It just happens, and if it's going to happen anywhere it will definitely happen at an atheist summer camp. I really don't see why you are opposing what I said. If there's going to be "hard" atheists made it will be where atheists and related are made.

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The argument that, if god does not exist then life has less meaning
Fixed.

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I hate to rain on your eugenics parade
I hate to rain on your rain, but culture and it's overlords override pretty much everything you just said.
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LegoLord

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1378 on: September 10, 2009, 06:44:38 pm »

Not to mention, with modern medical advancements, nearly everyone (note: NEARLY) is able to survive to the point where they can reproduce; few genes these days are likely to have a direct affect on a given individual thanks to modern medical care.  It's really all down to luck now.  And luck isn't genetic.  And the mind is not near so easy to condition as you think; that, too, relies heavily on chance.  You  can't build up a resistance to all diseases, and a reaction to certain events cannot simply be "evolved" at will, whether by process of technology or by thinking it into happening.  Evolution do not occur to an individual, but to a species over the course of generations, even with artificial selection.

As for what you mention of marriage, Andir, that is largely an American problem - mostly stemming from poor choices in partner rather than anything else.  If you go to a place, say, India, people frown upon the materialism that you claim is necessary for a relationship to be maintained.  The idea that you simply need show that you care for your partner is quite popular in several areas (even amongst groups in America).  And intimacy with a single person is actually emotionally more healthy than intimacy with a large number of people.  That is how the human mind developed in its early days - religion has nothing to do with it.  Marriage came out of that feature of the mind.  With or without religion, marriage is important.
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G-Flex

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #1379 on: September 10, 2009, 06:51:54 pm »

Except that's not the truth.

Selecting who should live and who should die (or reproduce) isn't paying homage to natural selection; it's strictly artificial. Deciding who does or doesn't deserve help or compassion, or who does or doesn't deserve to reproduce, is a strictly artificial process. You aren't helping natural selection, you're engaging in artificial selection while calling it "natural".

I skimmed from this point on because I don't have a lot of time right now... but natural brain processes can still be determinate of natural selection.

I know. This would have been clearer if you had read more.

Quote
I'm also not talking about killing people or deciding who can or cannot breed.  I don't know where you got that from.  Just not "helping" people get past their mutations.  If their mutations help them then they live on.  If they don't... they either eventually leave that trait behind through generations or it grows stronger.

I explained why this is wrong on several levels already, and I don't really feel like repeating myself.


Not to mention, with modern medical advancements, nearly everyone (note: NEARLY) is able to survive to the point where they can reproduce; few genes these days are likely to have a direct affect on a given individual thanks to modern medical care.  It's really all down to luck now.

The thing is, this happens in a lot of species. They get into a niche and stay in that niche for a long time without really changing a hell of a lot.

Natural evolution is guided by necessity. Humans living in the first world are at a point right now where there isn't any driving need to adapt, because we already have adapted to where we are.

Now, there's evidence that within the past several thousand years, human evolution has been going at a pretty high rate, overall. This is likely due to population expansion and the bizarre conditions humans have had to deal with while colonizing and civilizing. Right now, we have less of that going on, but may again in the future.

The fact of the matter is that even people with severe disabilities can contribute to society. We're living in a society where there isn't some pressing need to leave every blind or crippled person on the street to die, so doing so would be severely inhumane. And I've already outlined the reasons why failing to help those people would still fail to "improve the gene pool".
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