However, I never said that living and dying was worse than not living at all
No, you said that everyone dying worse than just dying. Which is a retarded thing to say since everybody dies.
Also, as Apsup said, one can't claim a 100% success rate on the available evidence.
He, and you, are wrong about that though. Definitions bitch. Living is defined as the self-sustainment of an organism that cease when the organism dies. By saying someone is alive, that he/she/it lives, you are acknowledging they will eventually die. Which is still applicable in this day and age since we don't have magic technology that keeps an organism alive forever. Stasis is being lifeless.
Evolution afterwards is definitely possible. My view is that God created a world that would force animals of all kinds, including humans, to adapt to their environments in different ways, changing and creating new species.
And no, it's not completely ridiculous. You can try and argue with me, but I'm pretty agreeable to anything evolution puts forward, and none of it disproves religion. Only idiots try to use evolution to disprove religion. In my mind, the two are unrelated.
Professionalism and rational thinking are replaced with politics and petty egos. The worry of looking bad turns professional relationships into adversarial ones. Where even one who wants to rise above it all is forced to become it to survive.
And no, it's not completely ridiculous. You can try and argue with me, but I'm pretty agreeable to anything evolution puts forward, and none of it disproves religion. Only idiots try to use evolution to disprove religion. In my mind, the two are unrelated.
I used to believe exactly this. Then I realized that you don't actually need to have the god bit in there once you have the science bit. There is no holes to fill save your squishy human emotional ones, and emotions are stupid. Use your brain, and not the other bits of your brain that don't know what they are talking about.
There is no holes to fill save your squishy human emotional ones, and emotions are stupid.
Naw, emotions are awesome. The key, I think, is to find religious-like emotions in secular contexts. I definitely wouldn't be an atheist if I wasn't emotionally invested in a secular viewpoint.
And no, it's not completely ridiculous. You can try and argue with me, but I'm pretty agreeable to anything evolution puts forward, and none of it disproves religion. Only idiots try to use evolution to disprove religion. In my mind, the two are unrelated.
But it's God of the Gaps. When all the gaps disappear, what god is left?
I used to believe exactly this. Then I realized that you don't actually need to have the god bit in there once you have the science bit. There is no holes to fill save your squishy human emotional ones, and emotions are stupid. Use your brain, and not the other bits of your brain that don't know what they are talking about.
From your point of view, without presupposing the existence of a god, Occam's razor clearly cuts His influence out. Without having God established elsewhere, there's no need for an invisible guiding hand (and one would be unlikely to be even considered).
From the point of view that presupposes God, whether through other evidence or personal faith, His invisible guiding hand in evolution is almost a no-brainer. The evidence is clear in the fossil record as to how creatures evolved, and certainly God does not play dice. Therefore, evolution is a window, however tiny, into the methods and workings of God.
Footnote: I'm as atheist as they come, but I'm fine with whatever weird additions (aliens, garden gnomes) that you want to add from your own beliefs and experience, so long as your view of the world follows the same evidence mine does and predicts the same verifiable results.
There is no holes to fill save your squishy human emotional ones, and emotions are stupid.
Naw, emotions are awesome. The key, I think, is to find religious-like emotions in secular contexts. I definitely wouldn't be an atheist if I wasn't emotionally invested in a secular viewpoint.
I mean emotions are stupid as in, emotions aren't smart, not aren't useful or whatever. Emotions aren't good at figuring stuff out. They are the root of middle-world problems that makes illogical things like god or whatever seem reasonable.
And no, it's not completely ridiculous. You can try and argue with me, but I'm pretty agreeable to anything evolution puts forward, and none of it disproves religion. Only idiots try to use evolution to disprove religion. In my mind, the two are unrelated.
He, and you, are wrong about that though. Definitions bitch. Living is defined as the self-sustainment of an organism that cease when the organism dies. By saying someone is alive, that he/she/it lives, you are acknowledging they will eventually die. Which is still applicable in this day and age since we don't have magic technology that keeps an organism alive forever. Stasis is being lifeless.
Sure, we don't have that technology now, but you can't claim for certain that it won't exist in the future - perhaps someone born today will live to be 150, and by that time that technology will actually exist? Sure, it's almost certain that everyone alive today will die, but not entirely so.
No, you said that everyone dying worse than just dying. Which is a retarded thing to say since everybody dies.
It's hardly a retarded thing to say, because it's true. Sure, it might not be something we can do anything about, but that doesn't make it suck less. Also, it was in reference to the world ending, so it's not just a matter of everyone dying, it's a matter of everyone dying now rather than eventually - there's quite a large difference there.
If you, personally, would rather not die today, then everyone in the world dying today is quite obviously a whole lot worse.
And no, it's not completely ridiculous. You can try and argue with me, but I'm pretty agreeable to anything evolution puts forward, and none of it disproves religion. Only idiots try to use evolution to disprove religion. In my mind, the two are unrelated.
But it's God of the Gaps. When all the gaps disappear, what god is left?
Who says I use God to fill the gaps? God isn't my explanation for the creation of the world, the Bible just touches on that so I creatively interpret. I believe in God solely for personal and emotional reasons, and because I have several biases that make it more appealing to my mind that a God exists, specifically the Christian God. I realize this doesn't make it a valid argument, which is why I don't argue for the existence of God with people, but I can't rationalize, in my own personal mind, a world in which there is no God, and yet people continue to do good. I've had this argument on this forum before and I won't have it again, but that's the basis of it.
I believe in God solely for personal and emotional reasons, and because I have several biases that make it more appealing to my mind that a God exists, specifically the Christian God.
If you recognise that something is a bias, then why not work to fix it?
I can't rationalize, in my own personal mind, a world in which there is no God, and yet people continue to do good.
There's no need to rationalize it, because that's exactly the world in which we live.
I believe in God solely for personal and emotional reasons, and because I have several biases that make it more appealing to my mind that a God exists, specifically the Christian God.
If you recognise that something is a bias, then why not work to fix it?
Except every single thought ever is motivated by a bias. If you don't have a bias, you're not really thinking. Biases aren't necessarily bad. We have good and bad biases, they help us decide what we consider is right and wrong.
I can't rationalize, in my own personal mind, a world in which there is no God, and yet people continue to do good.
There's no need to rationalize it, because that's exactly the world in which we live.
Except you can't prove there's no God, so you can't use the fact that "we live in a world without a God where people do good" as an example. That's cyclical reasoning. "There is no God, and I can prove it by showing to you how we live in a world where there's no God." Fact is, in my mind, I have to look at the world as it is, and then when I remove God, things stop making sense to me. I realize it's just me personally, but my world view causes this.
Also, believing in God is harming my life and others' lives in 0 ways. So I don't see a pressing need to change anything.
It's a simple Occam's Razor reduction. What is simpler, a world without a god wherein people do good due to the chemical reactions behind evolutionarily-acquired empathy? Or a world where an invisible cosmic force imbues people with the ability to behave a certain way?
I believe in God solely for personal and emotional reasons, and because I have several biases that make it more appealing to my mind that a God exists, specifically the Christian God.
If you recognise that something is a bias, then why not work to fix it?
Except every single thought ever is motivated by a bias. If you don't have a bias, you're not really thinking. Biases aren't necessarily bad. We have good and bad biases, they help us decide what we consider is right and wrong.
Perhaps we're using the word "bias" differently, but my understanding of the term "bias" is that it refers to something that is indeed inherently bad, particularly cognitive biases.
I can't rationalize, in my own personal mind, a world in which there is no God, and yet people continue to do good.
There's no need to rationalize it, because that's exactly the world in which we live.
Except you can't prove there's no God, so you can't use the fact that "we live in a world without a God where people do good" as an example.
That depends what you mean by "prove". There is little evidence for the existence of a God, and plenty against it. Sure, we can't prove it to be a 100% certainty, but so what? In any case, my reponse was primarily to how you quite specifically used the word "rationalize", rather than "rationally consider", which is what you ought to do.
Fact is, in my mind, I have to look at the world as it is, and then when I remove God, things stop making sense to me. I realize it's just me personally, but my world view causes this.
This, in particular, interests me. What exactly is it that you envisage when you "remove God"? How does God make people good?
Also, believing in God is harming my life and others' lives in 0 ways.
I doubt that. Perhaps the harm done isn't so large, but I do not envy you your view of humanity. Also, I think your worldview could easily cause unnecessary emotional stress.
Also, I think your worldview could easily cause unnecessary emotional stress.
True enough, I will grant you this. But that's not something so quickly changed.
This, in particular, interests me. What exactly is it that you envisage when you "remove God"? How does God make people good?
The way I look at it, which is in direct opposition to most people on this forum, people don't have a biological condition to build societies and work together. It is a societal condition taught to us. We are not born knowing how to work in teams and with other people, we are born being selfish. The earliest people did not work together until they had something unifying. Some people simply say that man invented religion to force the creation of society. However, this is where it breaks down in my mind, because why would any man have ever wanted society? The idea that we weren't innately made to build societies and to want that contradicts the idea that someone would've created society. Yes, society is better for people as a whole, but who so long ago would've realized that? No one would've had the foresight to realize this, and most people would've simply looked out for themselves. But that's not the case. Despite us being, as far as we know, biologically built to care about ourselves and our line first, tons of unrelated societies all had the same idea to build some sort of deity in order to create some form of society. This is strange to me, why would they want to? I've never liked any of the explanations for why people have a biological imperative to build societies, I don't think it's there. The fact is, something in this world inspires us to do good and to care about something other than simply ourselves, and in my mind a deity is the most logical explanation, as it is in fact the thing that caused society to develop in the first place.
Also: Let's not take this too much farther lest Scrym be forced to shut down this thread/ban me due to a pointless rehashing of an old argument.
eople don't have a biological condition to build societies and work together. It is a societal condition taught to us.
Society is just an extension of evolution. Other animals build things and cooperate when selection pressure drives it. Society itself evolves in the exact same manner as the biological actors that embody it.
So, try again if you like, but there is a clear biological imperative for all of our behavior, which itself is not fundamentally different from other animals.
Ants build societies and work together. Ants do not have "brains" in the conventional sense of the word. They have a small lump of nerve cells connected to various muscle systems and sensors. Hell, even Volvox self-organizes into colonies where individual cells self-specialize to do certain things and help other cells.
Society is an evolutionary imperative that is in no way unique to human beings. Monkeys have it, wolves have it, insects have it, algae have it. Society is not proof of god. It is proof that evolution works.
Axel, you really need to read up on Evolution a bit more. While true that all creatures are inherently selfish, the main goal is to pass on your genes. This goal is vastly easier in a social group than alone. While one or two bloodlines may die off or succumb to cuckolding, on average, social groups improve the survivability of the species as a whole. A trait like this would be ingrained into our behaviour long before we had the mental capacity to question it.
I hate to be mean about it but your reasoning of "I've never liked any of the explanations" only points to your lack of knowledge on, or should I say exposure to the research of, this subject.
I'm sure that scrym could even put forth a mathematical reasoning for the rise of societies using game theory (and if they can't I'm sure they can point you in the right direction)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're saying we've evolved into animals who build society, that the biological imperative for society is an evolutionary gain?
Then why is it that, as I've pointed out, children need to be taught these things? We are not born with this inherent knowledge.We are taught right and wrong, how to behave, how to work within society, etc. It's not something genetic, something we inherit, or something we develop, it's something we're taught. From a young age, we are told we need to work within society, and it is imprinted onto us for as long as we can remember. But we don't start this way, biologically we only ever consider ourselves. When you make decisions to do things, your basest instinct is for yourself at the detriment of anything that gets in your way. It is only societal pressure that changes our actions into ones that are often more appropriate for the good of everyone.
So, no, I don't think we've evolved into it. While that could work as an explanation for why we could develop society without a religion, it doesn't explain why someone would've started to want that in the first place. Someone chose to go against their base instinct and realized that society was a better choice, but why? The argument for why people developed societal relations is for "selection pressure," but this there are still other options. Society wasn't the only way for a single person to survive, anyone could've very easily worked only for themselves and lived happily. No one had the foresight to realize more could be gained through large-scale cooperation. If anything, they would've cooperated, then betrayed each other to gain more from their victory.
Teaching and learning structures are evolutionarily acquired pieces of hardware that allow human brains to self-organize and specialize. Ants use pheromones. Dogs use pack mentality, pheromones, and body language. Algae use chemical signalling. Also, lolwut at "anyone could have survived by themselves." Nope. Certain bodies and brains are better at certain things, and the mind recognizes that. The logical evolutionary shortcut is to develop into a colony instead of waiting to develop a superorganism that does everything by itself perfectly.
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And no, it's not completely ridiculous. You can try and argue with me, but I'm pretty agreeable to anything evolution puts forward, and none of it disproves religion. Only idiots try to use evolution to disprove religion. In my mind, the two are unrelated.
From the point of view that presupposes God, whether through other evidence or personal faith, His invisible guiding hand in evolution is almost a no-brainer. The evidence is clear in the fossil record as to how creatures evolved, and certainly God does not play dice. Therefore, evolution is a window, however tiny, into the methods and workings of God.
Footnote: I'm as atheist as they come, but I'm fine with whatever weird additions (aliens, garden gnomes) that you want to add from your own beliefs and experience, so long as your view of the world follows the same evidence mine does and predicts the same verifiable results.
If you, personally, would rather not die today, then everyone in the world dying today is quite obviously a whole lot worse.
Also, believing in God is harming my life and others' lives in 0 ways. So I don't see a pressing need to change anything.
In any case, my reponse was primarily to how you quite specifically used the word "rationalize", rather than "rationally consider", which is what you ought to do. This, in particular, interests me. What exactly is it that you envisage when you "remove God"? How does God make people good? I doubt that. Perhaps the harm done isn't so large, but I do not envy you your view of humanity. Also, I think your worldview could easily cause unnecessary emotional stress.
But that's not the case. Despite us being, as far as we know, biologically built to care about ourselves and our line first, tons of unrelated societies all had the same idea to build some sort of deity in order to create some form of society. This is strange to me, why would they want to? I've never liked any of the explanations for why people have a biological imperative to build societies, I don't think it's there. The fact is, something in this world inspires us to do good and to care about something other than simply ourselves, and in my mind a deity is the most logical explanation, as it is in fact the thing that caused society to develop in the first place.
Also: Let's not take this too much farther lest Scrym be forced to shut down this thread/ban me due to a pointless rehashing of an old argument.
So, try again if you like, but there is a clear biological imperative for all of our behavior, which itself is not fundamentally different from other animals.
Society is an evolutionary imperative that is in no way unique to human beings. Monkeys have it, wolves have it, insects have it, algae have it. Society is not proof of god. It is proof that evolution works.
I hate to be mean about it but your reasoning of "I've never liked any of the explanations" only points to your lack of knowledge on, or should I say exposure to the research of, this subject.
I'm sure that scrym could even put forth a mathematical reasoning for the rise of societies using game theory (and if they can't I'm sure they can point you in the right direction)
Then why is it that, as I've pointed out, children need to be taught these things? We are not born with this inherent knowledge.We are taught right and wrong, how to behave, how to work within society, etc.
It's not something genetic, something we inherit, or something we develop, it's something we're taught. From a young age, we are told we need to work within society, and it is imprinted onto us for as long as we can remember. But we don't start this way, biologically we only ever consider ourselves. When you make decisions to do things, your basest instinct is for yourself at the detriment of anything that gets in your way. It is only societal pressure that changes our actions into ones that are often more appropriate for the good of everyone.
So, no, I don't think we've evolved into it. While that could work as an explanation for why we could develop society without a religion, it doesn't explain why someone would've started to want that in the first place. Someone chose to go against their base instinct and realized that society was a better choice, but why? The argument for why people developed societal relations is for "selection pressure," but this there are still other options. Society wasn't the only way for a single person to survive, anyone could've very easily worked only for themselves and lived happily. No one had the foresight to realize more could be gained through large-scale cooperation. If anything, they would've cooperated, then betrayed each other to gain more from their victory.
It just doesn't make sense to me.
That is one of a million million examples.