slayer202
Lifer
- Nov 27, 2005
- 13,679
- 119
- 106
Malak
Lifer
- Dec 4, 2004
- 14,696
- 2
- 0
The problem is you think it is a waste of time. If you don't want to believe you never will.
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
This immediately came to mind.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, as I'm sure you've heard before. Being the offspring of an infinitely complex and powerful entity would require nearly-infinitely extraordinary evidence. All we've got is a mish-mash collection of ancient stories.
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lxskllr
No Lifer
- Nov 30, 2004
- 60,071
- 10,553
- 126
Science is in the business of revealing truth. If god gets caught up in the process, all the better. As far as Jesus is concerned... The stories are nice, but they were all created by people I honestly don't have a lot of respect for, in a time when superstition was rampant. Much of it was also too symbolic, and pointless; especially when dealing with dumbasses like humans. You died on a cross for /some reason/, wrapped in symbolism, and bs; great. You really want to impress me, live for 20000+ so you can keep telling everybody how to live. I'd follow THAT guy anywhere....
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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gaidensensei
Banned
- May 31, 2003
- 2,851
- 2
- 81
As rational as the logic gets in Eagleman's definition, I don't think much of the public is willing to consider themselves in a situation where they can believe something is possible. It's kind of like changing an 'non-believer''s original opinion of "no, this or that doesn't exist" to "I don't know if it's true or not, but I'll get back to you if I ever do."
We live in first world society that demands immediacy to everything we do, generating satisfaction in our answers. People want yes/no answers, much of the business world hates the word 'maybe'.
Consider someone who is going to buy, or bought an expensive item, and was not sure of their purchase. They consult with others to see if their purchase is a good or bad buy. They are always looking for answers "yes, it was a good purchase" or "no, that is a bad purchase". Rarely is the "maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't" answer accepted - it gets overlooked and they will consult someone else.
In the past, this was not as much of a problem because many concepts were still undefined. People take a position on something rather than questioning the unknown.
Consider the introduction of microorganisms, bacteria, fungi and alike. People used to believe that it was spontaneous creation that they would appear, to some they were the act of some kind of magic of sort. Along came Louis Pasteur with the germ theory, proving otherwise with the flask experiments. Even after demonstrating the pasteurization process, people still continued to believe otherwise until over time it became accepted. Today, I doubt you would find any sane scientist who questions the existence of bacteria.
Remember genetics? Gregor Mendel? Prior to his time, people would believe if a black sheep mated with a white sheep, it would produce gray sheep. How did this reasoning come about? You tell me..
As far as I can think of, the only thing currently still on earth that people still cast uncertainty, usually in fear, is of the deeper depths of the ocean. Think about it. No one has been way down those underwater catacombs aside from machines, yet often it still met with uncertainty of what lurks under the depths.
We live in first world society that demands immediacy to everything we do, generating satisfaction in our answers. People want yes/no answers, much of the business world hates the word 'maybe'.
Consider someone who is going to buy, or bought an expensive item, and was not sure of their purchase. They consult with others to see if their purchase is a good or bad buy. They are always looking for answers "yes, it was a good purchase" or "no, that is a bad purchase". Rarely is the "maybe you should, maybe you shouldn't" answer accepted - it gets overlooked and they will consult someone else.
In the past, this was not as much of a problem because many concepts were still undefined. People take a position on something rather than questioning the unknown.
Consider the introduction of microorganisms, bacteria, fungi and alike. People used to believe that it was spontaneous creation that they would appear, to some they were the act of some kind of magic of sort. Along came Louis Pasteur with the germ theory, proving otherwise with the flask experiments. Even after demonstrating the pasteurization process, people still continued to believe otherwise until over time it became accepted. Today, I doubt you would find any sane scientist who questions the existence of bacteria.
Remember genetics? Gregor Mendel? Prior to his time, people would believe if a black sheep mated with a white sheep, it would produce gray sheep. How did this reasoning come about? You tell me..
As far as I can think of, the only thing currently still on earth that people still cast uncertainty, usually in fear, is of the deeper depths of the ocean. Think about it. No one has been way down those underwater catacombs aside from machines, yet often it still met with uncertainty of what lurks under the depths.
slayer202
Lifer
- Nov 27, 2005
- 13,679
- 119
- 106
claiming there is no god is no different than claiming there is no santa or there are no unicorns. of course you can't be 100% sure, but if you're gonna make that argument, you can't be 100% sure about ANYTHING, making the whole thing just silly
they make these idiotic arguments thinking that it looks smart when in reality they gain nothing..but for some reason it gives them comfort to say well you dont know 100% of the facts about existence so somehow my baseless argument must be right
yes, but there are certain things that I am quite confident do not exist in those depths.
slayer202
Lifer
- Nov 27, 2005
- 13,679
- 119
- 106
zinfamous
No Lifer
- Jul 12, 2006
- 111,864
- 31,359
- 146
religions are always true. you can see perfectly well with your own eyes, that jews go to their synagogues and do their rituals, christians shuttle off to church, budhists rake their sand, hindus so their little dances or whatever it is they do, satanists scratch their pentagrams into their newborn babies, and half the muslims bow and pray and the other half run off to bomb the synagogues and churches.
that is all very true. that is religion. as for the various deities or prophets and the spiritual centers of these religions....I think that is where you are conflicted.
Malak
Lifer
- Dec 4, 2004
- 14,696
- 2
- 0
The death on the cross could be misinterpreted far and wide, but that's another discussion. The point is what he did and said. Even if it was all a lie and nothing really happened, the things written are all good. At least in the Gospel.
The message is still going 2000 years later, but it is still a choice for you to make. Like I've said before, people find justification for not believing rather than looking for justification to believe. You either want to believe or don't, and there is no in between. People will ALWAYS believe what they want to believe.
alkemyst
No Lifer
- Feb 13, 2001
- 83,769
- 19
- 81
Jeff7
Lifer
- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 20
- 81
My first thought is that evidence should precede concrete belief. Belief without evidence is merely faith, and belief can cloud judgment. These people believed that they felt gravity changing substantially, just by the power of suggestion. Belief doesn't dictate reality, nor does reality care about belief.
- Oct 9, 1999
- 46,873
- 10,668
- 147
Wow, more red-faced emotionalism on your part, you calling me a clown.
It's truly pathetic that you keep blindly saying -- 10 times by your own red-faced count -- that I don't accept your defintion of atheism when I have subsequently said several times that I'm willing to stipulate your definition of atheism and that, given it, atheism and possiblilianism are entirely congruent.
Post #67 and you're still hopping up and down and calling me names in the process. Don't you fucking read before you respond? It's astounding that you don't.
Post #40:
Post # 53:
Post # 58:
It's absolutely mind-boggling pathetic that you keep attacking me despite these facts right in your face.
Who's the clown NOW, slayer? :awe:
- Oct 9, 1999
- 46,873
- 10,668
- 147
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
- 4,268
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I'd be willing to bet that your knowledge, experience and education is considerably less than many who entertain the notion of a creator in some form. One of the things I've learned is that many people tend to create silly notions like "they". Who are "they"? Are they like "you", people who I can generalize about as being intellectually inferior and then putting the personal you into it? It certainly reads that way.
The facts are that we have three pounds of goo in our skulls of which only a part can ask questions and understand answers about who, what and why. I've learned long ago that the more I learn, the less I actually know in comparison to the totality of reality. We aren't looking for a man in a red suit, we're looking for answers to profound questions. We will never know everything and at some point it's almost certain that we'll reach the point where objective reality (if there is such a thing) becomes incomprehensible. We are apes in clothing. Monkeys who drive cars. Gorillas with megalomania.
We have no real clue. That's not our fault, but dismissing things because they don't fit your personal need is foolish.
I want to make a point that is nicely illustrated in this thread. Take the following quote
It is followed by a number of defending posts.
What is my point, that what we believe is tied to our egos. To understand why that is important one has to understand the ego. But alas, there is a motivation not to understand the ego. As with other forms of truth, like the one under discussion here, we come to the debate with preconceived notions, notions, for example, that we are a unified single being when in fact huge numbers of mental activities are taking place in our brains beyond our conscious awareness. If we cut the corpus callosum we find we are two people. We have an emotional center we are not in touch with. We are a body that functions on auto pilot, etc.
We do not know what we feel, and our motivations come from feeling.
Why do we not know? Because we don't want to.
As children we were born perfect, in a perfect state, with all our infinite human potential, and then we were poured into the mold of family, culture, nation, etc. And we were put down if we ventured away from that prison, because in a crowd, a mob, a society, you are only safe if you conform.
Thus it is that we traded independents and curiosity of exploration for group think and safety. We were taught and manipulated to be afraid by being made to feel worthless and unloved if we were different.
And the ego? The ego is the substitute we put forth as our real self, the beloved conformer, the enforcer of rules, the winner we were assured we would be by dying to our original perfection. The ego is attachment to what we believe is the only safe source of success. To let fo of what we believe is to awaken the long buried pain by which we were converted away from our own perfection.
So we belong to teams, the religious, the atheist, and we can abide the notion that we are wrong because it would make us worthless, or actually awaken memories of when we were made to feel that way.
To be open to possibilities beyond what we have attached our egos to for the sake of safety and certainty, is to risk remembering our psychic death.
It's a lot to ask of people. That is why I believe that knowledge has value. If you know that you traded perfection for stupidity, to admit to stupidity, if one has faith, may be easier to do, than to actually die. To grow is to die psychically and that's a lot more palatable to a reasonable mind than to actually risk physical death. The fact is that everything we fear, our death, has already happened, in childhood. In truth there is hope. You will not die if you grow. You will only feel that you are.
This also helps to explain why the question of God keeps appearing throughout human history, the notion that there is something GOOD out there, in a stone, a storm, a temple, some unknown force.
We know nothing, but we feel, and in the depth of our souls there is this longing, this need for something beyond the mundane. I believe that this need comes from the deeply buried true self we were taught to hate. We were born completely unified, a single consciousness that words and language, the naming of things good and bad, fractured. I believe that all the great mystics and teachers throughout the ages found a way back to that, and that all religions thus founded were designed to return to that, counteracting the primary delusions of their particular time and culture.
I believe that the souls of all people can't be completely destroyed, and the echo of the possibility of perfection calls to us all.
I believe that Truth is not a something but a conscious state, a state that ends time and thought in conscious unity, a state where one seeks nothing because infinite love pours out of oneself and floods the universe with it.
There is only love and the lover and the beloved are one. The eye with which we see God is the same eye with which He sees us.
We can't know if we created God or He created us and it doesn't make the slightest difference. The only thing that matters is to awaken. And that will probably be of no interest if you think you already know everything.
It is followed by a number of defending posts.
What is my point, that what we believe is tied to our egos. To understand why that is important one has to understand the ego. But alas, there is a motivation not to understand the ego. As with other forms of truth, like the one under discussion here, we come to the debate with preconceived notions, notions, for example, that we are a unified single being when in fact huge numbers of mental activities are taking place in our brains beyond our conscious awareness. If we cut the corpus callosum we find we are two people. We have an emotional center we are not in touch with. We are a body that functions on auto pilot, etc.
We do not know what we feel, and our motivations come from feeling.
Why do we not know? Because we don't want to.
As children we were born perfect, in a perfect state, with all our infinite human potential, and then we were poured into the mold of family, culture, nation, etc. And we were put down if we ventured away from that prison, because in a crowd, a mob, a society, you are only safe if you conform.
Thus it is that we traded independents and curiosity of exploration for group think and safety. We were taught and manipulated to be afraid by being made to feel worthless and unloved if we were different.
And the ego? The ego is the substitute we put forth as our real self, the beloved conformer, the enforcer of rules, the winner we were assured we would be by dying to our original perfection. The ego is attachment to what we believe is the only safe source of success. To let fo of what we believe is to awaken the long buried pain by which we were converted away from our own perfection.
So we belong to teams, the religious, the atheist, and we can abide the notion that we are wrong because it would make us worthless, or actually awaken memories of when we were made to feel that way.
To be open to possibilities beyond what we have attached our egos to for the sake of safety and certainty, is to risk remembering our psychic death.
It's a lot to ask of people. That is why I believe that knowledge has value. If you know that you traded perfection for stupidity, to admit to stupidity, if one has faith, may be easier to do, than to actually die. To grow is to die psychically and that's a lot more palatable to a reasonable mind than to actually risk physical death. The fact is that everything we fear, our death, has already happened, in childhood. In truth there is hope. You will not die if you grow. You will only feel that you are.
This also helps to explain why the question of God keeps appearing throughout human history, the notion that there is something GOOD out there, in a stone, a storm, a temple, some unknown force.
We know nothing, but we feel, and in the depth of our souls there is this longing, this need for something beyond the mundane. I believe that this need comes from the deeply buried true self we were taught to hate. We were born completely unified, a single consciousness that words and language, the naming of things good and bad, fractured. I believe that all the great mystics and teachers throughout the ages found a way back to that, and that all religions thus founded were designed to return to that, counteracting the primary delusions of their particular time and culture.
I believe that the souls of all people can't be completely destroyed, and the echo of the possibility of perfection calls to us all.
I believe that Truth is not a something but a conscious state, a state that ends time and thought in conscious unity, a state where one seeks nothing because infinite love pours out of oneself and floods the universe with it.
There is only love and the lover and the beloved are one. The eye with which we see God is the same eye with which He sees us.
We can't know if we created God or He created us and it doesn't make the slightest difference. The only thing that matters is to awaken. And that will probably be of no interest if you think you already know everything.
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Inspector Jihad
Lifer
- Apr 17, 2005
- 13,465
- 3
- 81
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
- 4,268
- 126
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."
Perhaps that's why looking for Truth down unfamiliar paths is something feared.
Perhaps that's why looking for Truth down unfamiliar paths is something feared.
Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
- 50,879
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- Oct 9, 1999
- 46,873
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Lol, here's a brief remedial reading comprehension refresher for you, too!
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=31809909&postcount=90
Well said? How can it be well said. The post shows you exactly what is wrong with it. Look, see where he said, "I just think this possibilianism is fucking retarded, because it is." Anybody can see that statement is fucking retarded because it is. Let me amend that. Anybody with a fucking functioning brain can see that. Sorry if I sound so certain.
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