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Author Topic: Atheists  (Read 404313 times)

Snall

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3180 on: April 17, 2010, 03:53:36 am »

I believe in the God of my body.  Which is me and my chemical reactions.  We're pretty awesome together.  Also, in truth, I DO believe in a higher power- if it's sentient or not, and if it cares/knows about us at all though are impossible ble to tell imo.  For now I'll think of GOD much as I do gravity. 
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Vester

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3181 on: April 17, 2010, 04:22:53 am »

I believe in the God of my body.  Which is me and my chemical reactions.  We're pretty awesome together.  Also, in truth, I DO believe in a higher power- if it's sentient or not, and if it cares/knows about us at all though are impossible ble to tell imo.  For now I'll think of GOD much as I do gravity. 

Yay for hormones!

Except that "That's just the way it is" is an unacceptable response, why is it that way?

In that case,why does light travel at a constant rate?

(That's an honest question. I have no idea.)
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RAM

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3182 on: April 17, 2010, 04:35:32 am »

Logically, this God figure would either have to not be a God like being, or be incredible ignorant/dumb/shortsighted/evil/etc.  Any being with Godlike powers would have no need for us and would not create a universe of this scale and complexity for our entertainment, or it's own (assuming it can already see what has occurred in the future...)

So, If logic is a bad way to define God... what next?

Your line of thinking here is entirely a subjective assertion.  How do you ascribe logic to it?
The subjectivity of the assertion is almost entirely restrained to the use of the term god, which nobody seems to be willing to accept a definition of. And logic is ascribed to it as an assertion, which is supported elsewhere. The definition of god used here is, in fact, a fairly narrow one, which requires only that god possess absolute power and absolute knowledge, but is one generally accepted by the religions that seem prevalent on this thread.
 The proof is along the lines of, something happens that results in someone being less than satisfied. At that point there is a flaw in the world, if one assumes that a 'god' exists, then its existence would need to be justifiable in the presence of such a flaw. The entity is sufficiently capable that it may choose for there to be no potential for flaws, and that have no value to it. There is nothing it cannot defeat and nothing it requires. So the only possibility is that it chooses to maintain flaws for their own sake. It is quite possible that they are not flaws, but that requires that humans are not valuable to it, it is possible that it chooses to maintain flaws for its own amusement. But people ascribe a positive nature to this god, with respect to humans, so they refuse to accept that it desires these flaws...



I'm not going to go over all of it again, but there's no logical reason for a a god to exist given the attributes we give to gods.  If you really feel like reading it, it's back about 30 pages by now.

I think it's safe to say there is no need to go over it again since it cannot be anything except a subjective assertion.
This is an example of someone choosing not to explore something based upon a preexisting faith in its flaws. It is exactly this willingness to rely upon unfounded claims that makes the flaws in human understanding that allow religion to exist so dangerous. The appearance of a god, or enlightenment, or a cult leader, or any other fixation of blind devotion can be falsified in far more vivid ways than mere perfect visual, auditory, tactile, and aromatic illusions could hope to achieve. I for one do not want people willing to abandon a reliable reality for one that can be assumed to be fictional. It is all but certain that religion would exist in a world devoid of gods.

  Your opinion of what God might like to do is precisely that -- your opinion.  I honestly have no idea how anyone would even begin to assume they can define what a god or gods might reasonable be expected to want or to do.  If there is no God that created us in His own image, then most assuredly we created gods in our own image.  What we choose to do is not dictated by strict logic.  Any god or gods would simply not be constrained by your definitions of what is good, or logical, or useful, or sensible.

Morality may indeed be utterly subjective, but if you happen to be God, your opinion is the one that counts.
But people do assume to know what their gods want, without it religion is futile, as the entire value of religion is that one would be able to adapt to its god. And so people can logically extrapolate from the assumptions presented by religions and prove them to be false.
 Humans do not strictly use logic, but their choices are dictated by logic. Humans can act according to logic, but they can also act according to less analytical methods, but both can be logically deduced. For example, a human steps into quicksand, they begin to sink. sinking is constant, raising one leg causes the other to sink, and causes sinking to increase. It is logical to seek a legless solution to the problem, failing that, one leg should be completely extracted from the sand before the other is moved, anything less than complete extraction is a complete loss. An alternative response is to panic, to struggle, and to sink. This may seem completely devoid of logic, but one can see that the reactions would be highly successful in more common scenarios, such as being bitten, or placing a foot upon a dangerously hot surface. Just because logic is not used does not mean that it is not present.
 Logic requires only patterns, if a god is not beholden to logic then that god is random, and has no effective value, not to mention that its presence would be obvious.
 The only morality that can act, and therefore the only morality that counts, is the morality of the one that acts. If a god's morality is not defensible by humans, then humans should not act upon it.

Being an atheist does not mean you know everything.
Being an atheist means you know everything about your own understanding of gods, which is far more than a religious person who refuses to define their god.
The question of whether God exists is the question of the nature of our own selves.
Error, the nature of the self is defined by the self. If a divine relationship is a component of the self then it can be discerned by studying the self.
  We know we are conscious decision makers, or at the very least that we are aware and perceive some sense of being conscious decision makers.  All of religion evolves from there.  I don't think I overstate the case in saying all of philosophy and ethics also starts from there. 
Perception may perceive a fictional self, memory can be false, expectation can be false, fact can be false, time can be false, thought can be false, experience can be false, only perception itself is certain. Philosophy begins with the assumption that the self is subject to doubt. Ethics begins with the assumption that the self is without value.
you can't just say that you don't believe in anything that cannot be fully explained, because you really have no choice.  There are things in life that are, yet are not fully explained.
Reliable responses are a constant of human, and all other decisions. When an ancient human constructs a solid structure, it is assumed that the structure will not pass through the solid ground or rise into the air, gravity and energy are not required to understand this, explanations are not required to understand this, reliability is sufficient. Gods provide no input upon which to rely.
By the time you start combining Goedel's proof with chaos and fractals, you get to a point where it seems very likely that there is a theoretical limit to knowledge.  We are closer to proving that it is impossible to know everything than we are to explaining everything.
if absolute knowledge is impossible then no entity can possess it. Principals can be deduced and from principals can be deduced any fact from an absolute scope of information. Absolute knowledge would be available in the absence of absolute storage of that knowledge.
This is a world where faith must always play its role.
Internal consistency is sufficient and can exist in the absence of faith.



It's the same either way.  It's, "God did it," or, "that's just the way it is."
Error: "that's just the way it is." is required for "God did it,". An absolutely encompassing scenario is certain, even in the absence of existence.
  I don't believe in God to explain how or why.  I was looking for the truth concerning the nature of myself and, to the best of my ability to ascertain, Christ is the Lord.  It's not something I believe because I can't figure out how the universe began.  It's something I believe because it fits the evidence I have at hand concerning myself, humanity, history, and yes, in many ways even science and mathematics.

I looked into myself and found that a virtuous god was impossible, and an avirtuous god must be opposed, and that the honest view is that there is no god at all. However, the assumption of ignorance is necessary for the pursuit of knowledge, if you would share the ability to ascertain the nature of this christ then it may expose something that I am ignorant of...
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CrossBolt

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3183 on: April 17, 2010, 06:10:42 am »

And so what if god is real? why did he create us? my answer to that, he wanted to be worshipped and created a "judging system" that would get rid of the people who didn't worship him.

Thats only if he is real, I want proof that it is by him writing in flaming letters in the sky for all to see "Hi mum!"
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Ampersand

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3184 on: April 17, 2010, 06:30:46 am »

I believe in the God of my body.  Which is me and my chemical reactions.  We're pretty awesome together.  Also, in truth, I DO believe in a higher power- if it's sentient or not, and if it cares/knows about us at all though are impossible ble to tell imo.  For now I'll think of GOD much as I do gravity. 

Yay for hormones!

Except that "That's just the way it is" is an unacceptable response, why is it that way?

In that case, why does light travel at a constant rate?

(That's an honest question. I have no idea.)

This is an interesting question, but it is the wrong question. Light travels at the maximum possible velocity that anything can travel at because it is massless. The real question is, why is there a maximum possible velocity?

To answer this question, I started looking to absolute units of measure. Planck Units. Planck units are units of measure that are based on five universal constants; The Speed of Light in a Vacuum, the Gravitational Constant, Coulomb Constant, Boltzmann's Constant, and the reduced Planck Constant. The exact values of these constants are not important for what I want to talk about, but you can find them on the internet.

The reason that these units were invented is simply because any unit of length smaller than the Planck Length, or unit of time smaller than Planck Time, causes Quantum physics equations to fall apart and rip space-time to shreds

The Planck units are important. For example, the Planck Length is 1.616252*(10^-35) meters. More accurately, It's the square root of ((the reduced Planck constant times the Gravitational Constant), divided by the speed of light cubed). It's not important. What is, is that you can use these units in place of traditional units to simplify important formulas in physics.

Using Planck units E=mc^2 is simplified to E = m. Quite elegant, isn't it?

The only other important equation most people would be familiar with is Newtons law of Universal gravitation.

Originally F = -G * (m1*m2/r2)
Becomes F = -1 * (m1*m2/r2)

A small, but significant change.

What I found from doing some basic divisions and multiplications of the Planck time and Planck length confirmed what professionals have known since Max Planck put forth these universal units. A velocity of 1 Planck Length per 1 Planck time is the speed of light.

What this implies is that objects moving slower than the speed of light are weird, not things traveling at it. The speed of light is the default for anything object that lacks mass. Anything that has mass is necessarily impeded from attaining this default speed because of mass-energy equivalence. If an object travels the speed of light, it's mass multiplied by infinity. Of course this is not an issue if the object is a photon, with a mass of 0.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 06:35:45 am by Ampersand »
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Vester

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3185 on: April 17, 2010, 06:35:32 am »

Mein gott, I wasn't expecting a serious answer to that. Thanks!

One of my professors last semester brought the Planck time up, but I didn't understand it as well. So I guess time isn't infinitely divisible?
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Ampersand

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3186 on: April 17, 2010, 06:39:51 am »

Theoretically it is, but because any division of time smaller than Planck time causes quantum equations to explode; you get values of infinity, you may as well be dividing by zero.
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 07:24:58 am by Ampersand »
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Neruz

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3187 on: April 17, 2010, 07:21:00 am »

In that case,why does light travel at a constant rate?

(That's an honest question. I have no idea.)

Because Photons have no mass. Objects with no mass must travel at the speed of light.

Why must objects with no mass travel at the speed of light? Well to understand that you need to read up on Special Relativity, amongst other things.


It will take years of hard work to truely understand and comprehend the reasons why however.



Theoretically it is, but because any division of time smaller than Planck time causes quantum equations to explode; you get values of infinity, you may as well be dividing by zero.

If by "Theoretically it is" you mean "No it isn't" then yes. Planck time is the smallest length of time it is possible to measure. Period. You cannot measure a length of time smaller than one Planck unit.

Ironically; time and distance being discrete turns out to actually coincide with logical reality; see Zeno's paradoxes, all of which are handily solved if time and distance are discrete, and lo and behold, at Planck measurements, they are!
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 07:28:19 am by Neruz »
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Siquo

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3188 on: April 17, 2010, 07:37:22 am »

But there comes a point when you have to narrow down the focus of that something to something that is repeatable millions/billions (every) of times and you have a law.  Gravity for example.  It always pulls us down.  There's no 1001th time when Gravity has pulled us up.  That's the "reality" we live in and that's a very reasonable assumption to make.  Living, hoping, or praying for that 1001th time to occur could be considered unreasonable belief.  Much like praying for a miracle.

"Law" just means "Theory that's unlikely to ever be disproven". A reasonable assumption is exactly that: an assumption. Not proof. And yes, things can fall up. If all atoms suddenly just decide to move upwards, a brick may fall upwards. The quantummechanical chance of that happening is so small that it will not happen in several universes' lifetimes, but there's still a chance. :)

Point being, you ALWAYS have to assume something, otherwise you can't prove anything, as Vester also pointed out.

Theoretically it is, but because any division of time smaller than Planck time causes quantum equations to explode; you get values of infinity, you may as well be dividing by zero.

So in short and back on track; Planck time is possibly impossible to ever be observed, but because our equations will otherwise explode we'll assume that it exists... Sounds a bit like "Because God did it" ...
Hey, Neruz, you hear that? You believe in something unprovable like God Planck time! ;)

The closest we got:
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As of 2006, the smallest unit of time that was directly measured was on the order of 1 attosecond (10^−18 s), or about 10^26  Planck times.
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This one thread is mine. MIIIIINE!!! And it will remain a happy, friendly, encouraging place, whether you lot like it or not. 
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Ampersand

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3189 on: April 17, 2010, 07:39:11 am »

That's not quite what I was intending to say, Neruz. It is possible do the following for example: 5.39124 × 10−45s. See? A division of time smaller than Planck time. The fact that this number is meaningless has nothing to do with whether or not it you can put it on paper or plug it into an equation.

Also, Siquo, you're not clever. Planck time is provable. You're the one who has no idea what he's talking about here.

Planck time is :
The Square root of ((Planck's reduced constant times the Gravitational constant) divided by the speed of light to the fifth power)

I'm not going to recreate Planck's full set of equations by which he derived these constants just for you, Siquo. Why don't you actually try reading something before you mouth off like that?
« Last Edit: April 17, 2010, 07:43:47 am by Ampersand »
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Neruz

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3190 on: April 17, 2010, 07:43:22 am »

That's not quite what I was intending to say, Neruz. It is possible do the following for example: 5.39124 × 10−45s. See? A division of time smaller than Planck time. The fact that this number is meaningless has nothing to do with whether or not it you can put it on paper or plug it into an equation.

Also, Siquo, you're not clever. Planck time is provable. You're the one who has no idea what he's talking about here.

Well yeah, in the same way that it's possible to say 1/0 = Infinity. While technically true in the barest sense of the word, it is utterly meaningless. 1/0 = Error, you can't do it. The same thing occures when you try and work between Planck units; Error. Concept is invalid.


Siquo, stop being an idiot; Planck time can be quite easily mathematically and theoretically proven, what it can't be (yet) is measured. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that unlike you the physicists of the world are not chimpanzees slinging poo around their cage, there are more ways to prove something than to simply measure it.

Ampersand

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3191 on: April 17, 2010, 07:45:36 am »

That's not quite what I was intending to say, Neruz. It is possible do the following for example: 5.39124 × 10−45s. See? A division of time smaller than Planck time. The fact that this number is meaningless has nothing to do with whether or not it you can put it on paper or plug it into an equation.

Also, Siquo, you're not clever. Planck time is provable. You're the one who has no idea what he's talking about here.

Well yeah, in the same way that it's possible to say 1/0 = Infinity. While technically true in the barest sense of the word, it is utterly meaningless. 1/0 = Error, you can't do it. The same thing occures when you try and work between Planck units; Error. Concept is invalid.

Er... Thanks for rephrasing exactly what I said?
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Jackrabbit

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3192 on: April 17, 2010, 07:52:25 am »

Siquo, stop being an idiot; Planck time can be quite easily mathematically and theoretically proven, what it can't be (yet) is measured. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that unlike you the physicists of the world are not chimpanzees slinging poo around their cage, there are more ways to prove something than to simply measure it.

What. The fuck. You are actually getting ridiculous.
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Neruz

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3193 on: April 17, 2010, 07:52:57 am »

Sort of, i was intending to clarify that units smaller than Planck time aren't just meaningless, they're impossible. Errors. Don't work. Siquo is of the opinion that just because something is meaningless doesn't mean it is meaningless, so it's best to be extremely blunt when he's around, because otherwise he says something stupid and sits there with that silly grin on his face thinking he's all clever and has discovered a fundamental flaw in physics that the smartest people on the planet never noticed despite spending decades studying the subject.

Siquo, stop being an idiot; Planck time can be quite easily mathematically and theoretically proven, what it can't be (yet) is measured. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that unlike you the physicists of the world are not chimpanzees slinging poo around their cage, there are more ways to prove something than to simply measure it.

What. The fuck. You are actually getting ridiculous.

I'm getting sick of Siquo leaping up and saying something stupid, then pretending that he said something smart, is what i am.

Vester

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Re: Atheists
« Reply #3194 on: April 17, 2010, 07:54:34 am »

Siquo, stop being an idiot; Planck time can be quite easily mathematically and theoretically proven, what it can't be (yet) is measured. Fortunately, thanks to the fact that unlike you the physicists of the world are not chimpanzees slinging poo around their cage, there are more ways to prove something than to simply measure it.

What. The fuck. You are actually getting ridiculous.

I know, right? That's the ugliest I've seen it get in this thread.

Also, I thought you swore never to return to this place. (Wait, so did I.)

EDIT: Neruz, keep it civil.
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