God does not Exist: Therefore there is no self to pity, hate, defend, or feed.

[sandorski]

sandorski can't have a good faith discussion on this subject, witness one of his earlier replies to me:


So to him, there is no value here, other than to be a buzzkill, I suppose.

To demand verifiable evidence of claims of Spirituality is simply being a buzzkill? How empirical of you.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

The placebo effect only helps with some people and even then it only makes them believe they are getting better, not actually making them better.

And if it cured depression, or alcoholism, or...

These would be actually better, this example is of people who are actually better...

Even if you don't agree with the causal mechanism ascribed to the success; there is success.


I've never seen love for a rock-band or a foot ball team yield such success.

If you don't want to believe that there's something more that's fine.

But if you don't believe that belief can help people:

You are empirically incorrect.

 

[sandorski]

And if it cured depression, or alcoholism, or...

These would be actually better, this example is of people who are actually better...

Even if you don't agree with the causal mechanism ascribed to the success; there is success.


I've never seen love for a rock-band or a foot ball team yield such success.

If you don't want to believe that there's something more that's fine.

But if you don't believe that belief can help people:

You are empirically incorrect.

Sometimes people just need a change of mindset to solve certain problems. That can occur in many ways, even through Religious Belief. However, it is not the Religious Belief that fixes their problems. It is their desire to change that fixes it.

 

[Moonbeam]

And I am stuck in my empirical way of viewing things. I just can't help trying to define what the definer of the undefinable should be like.

I don't care what you do so long as you don't define yourself out of the running by assuming you might not have what it takes. I am a nobody and I did ok.

I was crushed by the realization that all manner of evil will be suffered by people, that children will be murdered before they even have a chance to live. It made me so sad I could not bear it. My suffering was existential. I experienced black dark hopeless misery, as I said. One night, deep in concentration as to the reason why I suffered, I entered a deep state of questioning. I was totally engaged in this question when the wind hit my house. In that instant my perspective switched. All my thought stopped and I because nothing but awareness of that wind. All of this might have meant nothing but all of the pieces in my head fell in place. I suddenly understood everything. My suffering ended right there. I found peace. What happened is hard to say. One thing was that I suddenly understood that in a meaningless universe I held on to meaning, held on to hope where no hope exists. I had not let go. I had not seen that the need for meaning is as meaningless as everything else. I had also entered the present from a deep far away place way out in my thinking. I experienced a shift in awareness between two profoundly different and extreme states of mind. The shock of the shift provided the insights. The contrast was staggering. To awaken like that in the moment from the deepest sadness to silent being changed my perspective on everything. There is only the now and it is perfect. Then there is the matter of love. I had been stripped of everything that can be taken and there it was, my love of being hidden under all of my grief. Whether God makes love or love makes God is a meaningless question. There is only love.

So in my case I took no pill, practiced no technique, attempted no mystical exercise. I fell into the nothing and woke up in love. A tiny switch got thrown and everything totally changed. Did something real happen. Of that I have no doubt. I can't give my experience to anybody, but neither can they take it from me. I have not the slightest doubt. I know because I know.

The world is full of pain. We feel real grief, but suffering is an ego delusion. The phoenix rises from ego death.

These are words, fingers that point to the moon. They are not themselves the moon. Ineffable as you say.

 

[Moonbeam]

Sometimes people just need a change of mindset to solve certain problems. That can occur in many ways, even through Religious Belief. However, it is not the Religious Belief that fixes their problems. It is their desire to change that fixes it.

You are imperially incorrect and you remain so. There is a documented case of a doctor why studied hypnotism to cure warts and was able to cure people using that technique. Get this. He cured a person's arm of a body inflammation he thought were warts but was a genetic disease, a disease that after he cured that arm he was informed by a leading doctor could absolutely not be cured. The result was that he couldn't then cure the rest of the person's body. It was impossible, you see?

Today on Public radio they had a show on human endurance. Apparently there's a tiny area of the brain that says when you've had enough and caused pain to make you stop. They gave bicyclists on an endurance run a placebo and an energy drink, but not to drink but to swish around in the mouth and spit out. The ones who got the real energy drink lasted an hour longer than the ones with the placebo, the theory being that they tricked the part of the brain that rations out energy into thinking help was on its way, that that part of the brain is a conservative and stingy with what it doles out, gets more generous when it thinks help is soon to arrive.

 

[tcsenter]

Damn, just realized this thread has been dead for a couple weeks.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Dead for weeks? Its been going for months, a few week break is not unacceptable in DC. (the forum they named after me after I demanded it).

 

[disappoint]

They could not come to that conclusion as anything that expands away from you faster than the speed of light is functionally in a black hole. The cosmic background radiation gone, all other galaxies flying away: they would conclude they are in an eternal singular galaxy and never have a sense of a big bang.

Empiricism can only get you so far before you reach the limits of what can possibly be observed... which seems to be the lesson of quantum physics.

Aren't they?

Not eternally no. There was a time when their galaxy was one of many. Before their ability to make observations I presume is what DixyCrat is saying.

I wish I had a better argument.

Yes they are.

The thing is, why would it matter? Sure they wouldn't be able to determine (using our methods) that the universe was once like we observe it today. So what? Why would that matter to them other than just curiosity of how it once was? Especially if it will never be liek that again?

By the way we are presuming them to be too much like us. They could have methods we wouldn't even be able to imagine.

So we are talking about hypotheticals that have little to no effect on your life and you have to wonder if this is akin to debating science fiction which would be a sort of mental masturbation. It doesn't accomplish anything other than make you feel good temporarily but you learn nothing useful for improving your life in this universe in the process so I think it to be a bit of a waste of time. But then time wasting seems to be a popular pastime among many people so I'm not judging just making an observation.

Science plays an important role in improving our lives and the scientific method bears repeating: First we make observations, then we come up with theories to explain those observations, then we test them.

We don't just imagine a hypothetical situation that doesn't exist and try to explain that because it's a waste of time, even if it's pleasurable to do so.

Similarly, if that civilization observes that they are in a single galaxy in the entire universe, then that is the data they have to work with and they wouldn't need to know it wasn't always like that.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

^I considered the conversation to be about epistemological limits and the pragmatic forces that drive those limits.

 

[piasabird]

The statement "God does not exist" is kind of oxy-moronic. You are arguing that something you do not believe in, for your argument. In a way you acknowledging God in your own argument that it, he, she does not exist.

 

[crashtech]

The square root of -1 doesn't exist, but we can talk about it and use it as a tool to get things done.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The square root of -1 doesn't exist, but we can talk about it and use it as a tool to get things done.

The square root of 4 doesn't exist, either. Numbers are just abstractions.

 

[crashtech]

The square root of 4 doesn't exist, either. Numbers are just abstractions.

I think you are making my point in this context, unless you thought I meant something different.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I think you are making my point in this context, unless you thought I meant something different.

I apologize -- I'm fresh off a frustrating debate on another forum with a Christian who literally had no idea what an abstraction is. He insisted that things like numbers, logic, "the laws of thought" and so on were objective features of reality and evidential of his god.

The point is it's kinda made me hyper-sensitive to any kind of talk about numbers that "exist." An implication I took from your comment was that imaginary numbers were distinct from real numbers in that they don't exist (whereas real numbers do). I understand that you weren't necessarily making this implication, and it's quite irrelevant to the point you were making in any case.

I'll just butt out now.

 

[disappoint]

I apologize -- I'm fresh off a frustrating debate on another forum with a Christian who literally had no idea what an abstraction is. He insisted that things like numbers, logic, "the laws of thought" and so on were objective features of reality and evidential of his god.

The point is it's kinda made me hyper-sensitive to any kind of talk about numbers that "exist." An implication I took from your comment was that imaginary numbers were distinct from real numbers in that they don't exist (whereas real numbers do). I understand that you weren't necessarily making this implication, and it's quite irrelevant to the point you were making in any case.

I'll just butt out now.

Hahaha what's really going to burn your bacon is he was right.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Is math discovered or is it created?

I think it's both.

 

[tcsenter]

An Atheist does not need to Know that there is "no god". It merely needs to not believe that any god exists.

As an atheist, I do not (often) posit there is no god as matter of fact. I am willing to concede there may be god or gods who:

- has never given revelation
- gave us revelation but permitted it to have been lost
- gave us revelation but permitted it to have been so obviously corrupted by men as to have major credulity problems

So either god is absent (no personal god), incompetent, or perhaps even malicious. None of which deserve or merit being worshiped or even acknowledged, really.

 

[Moonbeam]

As an atheist, I do not (often) posit there is no god as matter of fact. I am willing to concede there may be god or gods who:

- has never given revelation
- gave us revelation but permitted it to have been lost
- gave us revelation but permitted it to have been so obviously corrupted by men as to have major credulity problems

So either god is absent (no personal god), incompetent, or perhaps even malicious. None of which deserve or merit being worshiped or even acknowledged, really.

WTF? You blame God for your credulity problems? Amazing!

 

[Dr. Zaus]

- has never given revelation
- gave us revelation but permitted it to have been lost
- gave us revelation but permitted it to have been so obviously corrupted by men as to have major credulity problems

Is it possible you just didn't notice?

 

[tcsenter]

WTF? You blame God for your credulity problems? Amazing!

Credibility!

 

[Moonbeam]

Credibility!

Use used the word credulity.

 

[disappoint]

I know because I know.

"Fish not see hook until too late." -Confuscious probably. Or maybe Bruce Lee. Might even be me.

 

[Charmonium]

Credibility!

credibility means how believable you are to others.

credulity means how easily you can be made to believe.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Is math discovered or is it created?

I think it's both.

Math is a language. One that we created to talk about the relationships of things. Those relationships are second order information.

I have two apples. Both apples are each a thing. The fact that there is two of them is a relationship between them. Math is an abstraction we use to describe that relationship.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Math is a language. One that we created to talk about the relationships of things. Those relationships are second order information.

I have two apples. Both apples are each a thing. The fact that there is two of them is a relationship between them. Math is an abstraction we use to describe that relationship.

And the square root of -1 ?