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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 1:27:24 PM   
SusanofO


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Viewing this photography is amazing. Thanks for publishing the picture. It's breath-takingly beautiful to me.

I believe there is a higher force or power, simply because I am capable of consciousness.

"I think,  therefore I am" (Rene' Descartes, 1596-1650) is not an insignificant statement to me, in regard to inclining me to believe in a force that brought the universe into my awareness.

I was born. I will die. But - I am here, and I know it. Ultimately, it doesn't matter to me if I know how or why I got  here, as far as evidencing that higher power exists. It amazes me humans are capable of simply contemplating this question. To me, that is what is amazing. That is the ultimate evidence, to me.

Regardless of what that force is, or what anyone might call it - or what "religious" being it may be attributed to by some - *Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why or how I might otherwise exist (or not) if this power had not existed first. And yet nobody can seem to prove I am not here, or am some figment of my mere imagination. Hmmm. 
- I've contemplated this question at some length, read about it, and debated with people about it before. 

I believe some higher power brought the universe into human consciousness; so humans (and whatever else exists) could experience it. I just think the fact we exist at all says something, regardless of whether I know with certainty exactly what that is.
To me, the above paragraphs are what I've distilled what it says into, even after all the reading ,and debates, and church-going through the years.

Given there are arguably 12 physical dimensions, of which most humans can only perceive three, I always find arguing there isn't a higher force at work regarding the creation of the universe at all slightly amusing, and vehement arguing about it at length almost always tiresome. I've been around that block. But I am usually somehow interested in what other people believe re: This question (although I honestly and truly do not care what other people believe as far as this question goes, and am not trying to be offensive with this last statement. Part of the reason is that I've concluded (for me) that nobody has the answer).  

I will probably never understand what brought the universe into being.  Simply because I can't comprehend what that force might be, doesn't rule out its existence (to me). For me debate that it does is like debating whether buildings or houses exist or not, for instance, even though I can see them in front of my face, but don't happen to be an Architect.

The thought that has crossed my mind is that, perhaps my puny brain (which only weighs three pounds, tops) simply is not equipped to grasp it. And maybe was never meant to grasp it. That is indeed a humbling thought to me, but probably an accurate one. Not being able to grasp why I am here, or how I got here, could be part of "a grand plan" (if there is one, which I tend to believe there is) that underlies the reason the universe exists, as well as my existence.

I believe that when I die, my consciousness may pass on into another dimension, and the essence of my spirit "lives", but what corporeal form the evidence of my existence takes on when this happens (if any) I do not have an idea of. But I do not tend to believe that people's conscious essence simply ceases to exist, when they die. I do think human lives have an ultimate purpose, even though I do not know that purpose with any certainty. But this last thought is another topic entirely, maybe. Yes, this can be construed as "spiritual".

I also believe there is most likely life on other planets, simply because I can't fathom a universe this vast where absolutely no other life forms exist. I think what they may look life is certainly up for grabs.

Thanks for posting the picture.


- Susan

< Message edited by SusanofO -- 9/8/2006 2:11:47 PM >

_____________________________

"Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all". - Emily Dickinson

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 1:59:27 PM   
Chaingang


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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
We ought not to believe in things that make emotional sense to us?...


Rhetorically there are three kinds of appeals: logos (logic or reason), ethos (goes to the character of the speaker), and pathos (an argument based on emotion).

Let's not talk about god or science for a moment - let's talk about the death penalty. People that favor the death penalty tend to ignore the facts related to the issue, no one can claim ultimate authority on the subject so they generally rely on an emotional argument to get what they want. The Abrahamic creation myth says that when Cain slew Abel, that god came to him and complained: "Your brother's blood cries from the ground." Wow, who can't understand all of the emotions wrapped up in that statement? On the part of the speaker there is anger, a desire for vengeance, etc - there is also a sense that the deceased is somehow supernaturally angry and seeking revenge. That is some hopped up and powerful shit. "Your brother's blood cries from the ground." is an appeal to pathos unparalleled in literature.

But that's no way to decide the issue. We can't decide a social issue of tremendous importance purely on the basis of satisfying the perceived victims' need to vent their anger or to satisfy their desire for vengeance - we must seek a solution that goes to social justice instead. What if we have the wrong person standing as the accused? What then? Can the victims' possibly be in an impartial enough state of mind to decide the issue fairly? I think not - and of course it follows that such a scenario is not how we handle capital crimes. We let truly impartial people judged the accused, not the angry revenge crazed victims of the original crime. People get carried away emotionally all the time and they then make bad decisions. Everyone knows those things.

There is a book/movie title I am fond of, and I think it's appropriate to mention here as both advice and warning:
"The heart is deceitful above all things"

Do not trust your emotions. Do not make decisions based solely on your emotional states.

< Message edited by Chaingang -- 9/8/2006 2:06:03 PM >

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 2:17:35 PM   
Chaingang


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Joined: 10/24/2005
Status: offline 		It's appeared more than once already, so here is the refutation by shorthand and references with links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleological_argument

A teleological argument (or a design argument) is an argument for the existence of God or a creator based on perceived evidence of order, purpose, design and/or direction in nature. The word "teleological" is derived from the Greek word telos, meaning end or purpose. Teleology is the supposition that there is purpose or directive principle in the works and processes of nature.

...

The basic argument can be stated as follows:
1. X is too (complex, orderly, adaptive, apparently purposeful, and/or beautiful) to have occurred randomly or accidentally.
2. Therefore, X must have been created by a (sentient, intelligent, wise, and/or purposeful) being.
3. God is that (sentient, intelligent, wise, and/or purposeful) being.
.........................
Therefore, God exists.

-----

Bottom line best arguments against this idea: Just because the universe is complex it does not follow that it was designed. If it was designed, then who designed the designer? Yup, therein lies our old friend "infinite regression." You cannot posit as the first cause a thing that itself must also have a cause.

-----

"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
"At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
"The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

- Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time"

_____________________________

"Everything flows, nothing stands still." (Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει) - Heraclitus

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 2:24:12 PM   
SusanofO


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Status: offline 		Hi julia. I appreciate the telological site reference, Chaingang. I've seen it. Consider making that teleological argument "infinite regression according to your consciousness and what it is able to perceive". I think this argument can tend to get sort of Matrix-like from here on out (at least it usually has before, for me). Interesting film (no pun intended, or offense meant).
turtles, film, the Earth revolves around the sun - they are all actually (to me) really ships sailing off a flat Earth, but in albeit logical disguise.

 
- Susan

< Message edited by SusanofO -- 9/8/2006 3:23:40 PM >

_____________________________

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And never stops at all". - Emily Dickinson

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 2:42:33 PM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: cloudboy

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

I don't believe in life after death but even if there is, I'd put money on us not finding out there either because if there is life after death we'd probably still be subject to the same physical laws of the universe there.


Houdini and his wife vowed that when one of them died, the living one would do all he/she possibly could to communicate with the other.
Houdini predeceased his wife, and she was never thereafter able to communicate with him despite trying many avenues. The implication, too, was that he would try to send her messages from the next dimension or afterlife.

It never came to be.



I was persuaded to visit a medium once by a female friend (I'll do anything to get laid). It was one of those seances where the face of the medium changes to the face of the spirit supposedly speaking thrugh her. What I saw was the face of a friend that had died a year or so earlier. Discussing it with my female friend later she saw the same face and she didn't know my friend. However, it didn't change my point of view because what my friend said was banal in the extreme and could have been applied to a several million people. I still wish I knew how she did it, it was a great stunt but then, that is how religion works, it's nothing but theatre and drama and relies on the imagination of the audience.

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 3:33:14 PM   
SusanofO


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Status: offline 		I just do not understand how people can state there is no force or power that brought them into consciousness, when without that consciousness, or a state of being, there would no comprehension of terms such as "teleological argument" or viewing and discussion of the wonder of Hubble telescope pictures. And nobody has ever been able to ultimately answer questions like this for me, either. I mean no disrespect by that statement (truly). I am not denigrating anyone's belief by wondering (I hope). I do not expect an answer. All I am doing is wondering. Contemplating. I absolutely appreciate the OP posting the pictures.


- Susan

< Message edited by SusanofO -- 9/8/2006 3:42:13 PM >

_____________________________

"Hope is the thing with feathers,
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all". - Emily Dickinson

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 3:47:38 PM   
meatcleaver


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Status: offline 		Maybe consciousness is just another evolutionary development like the eye, after all, it is only self awareness. We laugh at cats and dogs looking into the mirror and thinking it is another cat or dog and how dumb it is. The moment we are self aware, that is going to lead to all sorts of inevitable questions. The universe is an absolutely amazing place, within that context, consciousness is not so spectacular, there is still so much more we can't sense or see because we are limited by our senses to edited highlights.

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 4:02:30 PM   
Lordandmaster


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Status: offline 		You can read Russell's own version of this in "Why I Am Not a Christian."  It's less dramatic, but makes the same point:

quote:

If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument. It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise; and when they said, "How about the tortoise?" the Indian said, "Suppose we change the subject." The argument is really no better than that.


You can find the whole essay here.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Chaingang

"A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
"At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise."
"The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?"
"You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."

- Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time"


< Message edited by Lordandmaster -- 9/8/2006 4:04:25 PM >

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 4:14:44 PM   
Rule


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quote:

ORIGINAL: SusanofO
I just do not understand how people can state there is no force or power that brought them into consciousness
Some people are inherently unable to recognize nor accept such a power nor the power of acausality affecting reality. That is one the one hand a disadvantage, a handicap, but on the other hand it is an advantage. It takes all kinds of people.
 
Myself I have walked the causal science - hard evidence required - frame for most of my life, but these last six years I have also learned to walk the acausal, spiritual frame, due to evidence and considerations that suffice for me personally.

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 6:00:57 PM   
Lordandmaster


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Status: offline 		Yup, typical theist rhetoric.  Atheists are "unable" to recognize a certain grand truth that only theists can appreciate.

I'll concede that there's one area where theists are incomparably better than atheists: circular reasoning.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule

Some people are inherently unable to recognize nor accept such a power nor the power of acausality affecting reality. That is one the one hand a disadvantage, a handicap, but on the other hand it is an advantage. It takes all kinds of people.

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 6:11:58 PM   
Noah


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Chaingang

quote:

ORIGINAL: juliaoceania
We ought not to believe in things that make emotional sense to us?...


Rhetorically there are three kinds of appeals: logos (logic or reason), ethos (goes to the character of the speaker), and pathos (an argument based on emotion).

Let's not talk about god or science for a moment - let's talk about the death penalt...


Nice post, Chain. Thanks.

When it comes to a finding of fact, such as whether this person did this crime, holding the ideal of dispassionate logic is great. But I think we should make room even there for the sometimes positive role of emotion in attacking highly rational(istic?) challenges.

Everyone concerned with a murder investigation sees the evidence pointing away from suspect C. The computer programs all concur with this view. Everyone agrees except Detective Jones, that is, who can't say a single thing in favor of his desire to keep investigating C except: "I have a hunch. It's driving me nuts. I can't sleep at night. This guy is worth looking at. I can FEEL it." In the TV movie he disobey's orders and cracks the case.

And maybe once in a while there really are Detective Joneses and maybe once in a while they are right. Maybe it even happens a lot. I don't know. I know people for whom hunches perform at better than chance rates, anyway.

Of course someone can spout theory about Jones actually using some kind of subliminal logic but then one could about as succesfully define emotion itself as a fallible but sometimes successful subliminal logic itself.

That would be what the experts call "Blowing smoke up each others' ass." and for once the experts would be right. Both claims are epistemic nightmares of a very soggy variety.

In plain language we have to admit that the emotional reactions of Jones helped solved the case, that is if C done it after all and that truth is discovered by Jones. Furthermore if someone points out that it was only Jones' "passion for justice" which carried him through to discover the facts against long odds, well we'd have in good sportsmanship to admit thay had a point there too. Once again emotion played a crucial if weird role in truth-finding.

Obviously we don't rely solely or primarily on anyone's emotions for crime-fighting. And, yeah, fair play, to let someone in the grip of grief at the loss of a loved one make life-and-death decisions about the death penalty or anything at all seems silly when people not subject to this consciousness-altering influence are available.

So yeah. Lead strongly with Logos for fact-finding, let Pathos play a limited/supporting role at most. And leave Legos right the hell out of it unless you're really after Bathos.

But the matter of whether to execute a murderer is bigger than a fact-finding, isn't it? It involves a question of value, not fact. Is emotion so easily relegated to a minor role in matters of value? I'm not sure. I will listen to arguments either way.

For anyone stumbling over my use of "argument" by the way, I'm not using it in the sense of "disputation" but to refer to the particular case someone makes for or against something.

As for the teleological argument (and the ontological argument and all of those classic arguments) well in the end they all can be seen to fail. They all fail on the very same terms that the arguments against them, including Russell's, fail (I'm not convinced that he meant it as anything more than a move in a parlour game anyhow.)

We can choose to see some probative value in these arguments of course, but that is in the end an emotional more than rational choice, in my view.

This is true just as we can see a home-made chocolate cake with birthday wishes and our name squirted on it as being probative to a degree of the baker's affection for us. But it is in vain--in the very terms of logical discourse--that we ask logic to decide a question which we encounter already as being about something larger than logic, or prior to logic, if you will--if indeed it is anything at all.

The Parker Brothers, as far as I know, did not find that they were unable to live their lives in any way but according to rules of Monopoly. They built the fucking thing. They were the biggest part of the context in which it took shape and meaning so of course they would not be subject to its rules of operation.

Insofar as the notion of diety under discussion involves viewing it as the origin of the world in some sense, well of course logic, being an undeniable aspect of the world, can no more prove the existence or non-existance of God than a given Community Chest card can provide a means of proving or disproving the existance of the Parker Brothers.

Does the very existence of Monopoly prove the existence of the Parker Brothers, by the way? About as well as the existence of the birthday cake proves the existence of a woman named Betty Crocker.

{Okay, the Parker Brothers didn't invent the game Monopoly. Charles Darrow did. The Parker Brothers at best deserve credit for somewhat reluctantly bringing the game to market. Don't cloud the issue with facts, alright? Betty Crocker sure as shit didn't invent cake either, by the way}

Does anyone want to say that Logic itself is a condition of existence and so if there is a God he must have been subject to logical constraints when he created the world, or subject to logical constraints upon his very existence? Well fine. Then you only need ask this person what sort of turtle their Turtle of Logic is standing on the back of. Or else compliment them on a faith greater than that of Abraham and surreptitiously touch their hem for luck.

Those classic arguments for and against God's existence can serve well as mental gymnastics (if you don't get too emotional about them.) They can serve well or poorly as meditations. They serve or far more often, I think, as time wasting distractions, though.

I won't argue (dispute, that is) with someone who believes that seeing a Honda in some way supports his belief in the existence of Japan, a country he has never seen, whose atomic wounds he has never put his fingers into, if you will. But then if this guy mounts a pulpit and claims that his seeing a nice low-mileage CBR1100F conclusively proves the existence of Japan, well I won't argue with him then, either, but I might inquire about his meds and if I can have some for the weekend.

I similarly won't argue with someone who states that seeing Hubble pictures in some way or to some degree supports his belief in God. If he says it proves God exists I may ignore him or I may fuck with him for fun or I may sincerely ask him about his notion of Proof. Call it intellectually morbidity in me if you like.

Logical exploration itself conducted with modest good sense can lead us to see that logical exploration has a finite range of useful application. It isn't logical to apply the tools of logic beyond this range. Kind of like walking to the edge of the continent can show us that walking has a limited range of useful application. Real simple.

Never mind the Telos of Aquinas and the Ontos of Anselm or the Mentos of that fag in the TV comercials for that matter. And never mind all of their logical detractors down through the centuries. The range of useful application of logic stops somewhere short of where God is found, or not found as the case may be, or none of the words have meaning.

I mean Aristotle believed that a menstruating woman's image would permanently discolor a mirror toward red. Spinoza though Blacks were a different species. Rove thought Libby would be a good guy to have on the team and Libby thought "Scooter" was a cool name for a world-class power-broker. I'm telling you even really smart guys fuck up royal sometimes.

What about emotional God-searching?

If there is a there, there as far as popular notions of God are concerned is He/She/It accessible via our emotions?

Once again, every argument in favor of such a claim is exactly as non-sensical as every argument against. I'm not saying worthless. At a certain point in life you realize how very subtly worthwhile nonsense can be, some of the time, for some sorts of things. But either way we have already seen that "beyond the reach of logic" is not synonymous with "non-existent."

I mean ... women exist, right?




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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 6:31:28 PM   
Rule


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule
Some people are inherently unable to recognize nor accept such a power nor the power of acausality affecting reality. That is one the one hand a disadvantage, a handicap, but on the other hand it is an advantage. It takes all kinds of people.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
Yup, typical theist rhetoric.  Atheists are "unable" to recognize a certain grand truth that only theists can appreciate.

Unlike you, I did not generalize. I did not say atheïsts. I said: "some people". You wrong me by putting words in my mouth that I never said. As a matter of fact I used to be an atheïst myself - and still am when I limit myself to the physical universe.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lordandmaster
I'll concede that there's one area where theists are incomparably better than atheists: circular reasoning.

As your previous statement, this second one is also wrong. ALL interpretations of reality are circular. ALL interpretations are based on axioms. Any reasoning is only as good as the axioms it is based on. Garbage in, garbage out, as the saying is. Thus atheist reasoning by definition also is circular.

The theist axiom is that there is a spiritual, acausal effect on the physical universe. Billions of people accept this axiom. That others do not is not in itself proof that the axiom is incorrect, but may instead indicate that some of them lack the ability to perceive the apparent truth of the axiom.

< Message edited by Rule -- 9/8/2006 6:36:20 PM >

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 6:32:10 PM   
KatyLied


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From: Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		Chain - thank you for sharing.  It's nice to be reminded of the vastness in which we inhabit.  It is somehow humbling.

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 6:39:28 PM   
mnottertail


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Status: offline 		The most inappropriate elegant and efficient argument I have found regarding this is:

Of course God forgives me, it's his fuckin' job.

I will cite the source (written on his tombstone, at some point in the future)

Ron  

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 6:43:38 PM   
KatyLied


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From: Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		Some people need a higher power or god in order to function in a nice, kind manner.  I think they are comfortable with rules carved in stone provided by something that is omnipotent.  I wish that people could find their "nice" and "kind" without having to depend on rules from a higher power to get there.

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 7:05:24 PM   
WhipTheHip


Posts: 1004
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Status: offline 		Your consciousness ceases to exist during periods when you are
asleep every night.  The only difference between death and these
non-conscious moments is death is permanent.   In effect, we
each experience death, every night. 

_____________________________



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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 7:15:35 PM   
Rule


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quote:

ORIGINAL: KatyLied
Some people need a higher power or god in order to function in a nice, kind manner.  I think they are comfortable with rules carved in stone provided by something that is omnipotent.  I wish that people could find their "nice" and "kind" without having to depend on rules from a higher power to get there.

Uhm, there is not necessarily a causal relation between your first and second sentence - unless one assumes that "a higher power or god" is identical to "something that is omnipotent".
 
Many people can find their "nice" and "kind" without having to depend on rules from a higher power to get there: it is called "living in grace" - and many christians and people in other non-circumcision populations do so. It are only those who do not live in grace but by law who require rules from a higher power.

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RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 7:17:18 PM   
Lordandmaster


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Rule

Unlike you, I did not generalize. I did not say atheïsts. I said: "some people". You wrong me by putting words in my mouth that I never said. As a matter of fact I used to be an atheïst myself - and still am when I limit myself to the physical universe.


Please.  The "some people" you were talking about were atheists.  If you're not going to have the courage to stand by the implications of what you say, don't say anything at all.  Don't go hiding behind the phrase "some people."

The fact that you used to be an atheist, and no longer are, has nothing to do with this.  If anything, it only confirms what I'm saying.  I'll bet you think you USED TO BE unable to perceive such-and-such, but now you no longer are.  You're a better person for it, etc...

quote:

As your previous statement, this second one is also wrong. ALL interpretations of reality are circular. ALL interpretations are based on axioms. Any reasoning is only as good as the axioms it is based on. Garbage in, garbage out, as the saying is. Thus atheist reasoning by definition also is circular.

The theist axiom is that there is a spiritual, acausal effect on the physical universe. Billions of people accept this axiom. That others do not is not in itself proof that the axiom is incorrect, but may instead indicate that some of them lack the ability to perceive the apparent truth of the axiom.


Wrong again, and you might want to read up on the fallacy of circular reasoning, as well as petitio principii, before you make any more embarrassing statements about logic.  The fact that all interpretations of the universe are based on axioms does not mean that they are all circular.  An argument is circular if it attempts to prove a proposition that is in doubt by appealing to the proposition itself.  That is NOT the same thing as reasoning from axioms.

Besides, in real science, the axioms are up for grabs.  We fall upon the axioms that best fit the world we experience, and dozens of assumptions that used to be regarded as axioms have been discarded along the way because they've been shown to be useless.  Scientists don't assume that something must be true just because billions of people believe it.  But theists never seem to want to try out the theory that this god they believe in might not really exist.

< Message edited by Lordandmaster -- 9/8/2006 7:20:00 PM >

(in reply to Rule)
Profile   Post #: 58
RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 7:20:48 PM   
WhipTheHip


Posts: 1004
Joined: 7/31/2006
Status: offline 		Consciousness is really the only thing that science may never explain.
The amazing thing is this.   None of us have any evidence that anything
physical exists, or that anything exists outside our consciousness. 

If there is a universe then nothing we experience is real.  By this I
mean, nothing in the objective universe is red or green or  blue. 
Colors are manufactured and perceived by brains.  Nothing real
can be experienced, and nothing that can be experienced is real.

Descartes was right, the only thing we can know with certainty 
is our own mind, and the qualia it produces.

This being said, there is not the slightest evidence for an
omniscient being, any creator, or any comassionate, loving
omnipotent being.

_____________________________



(in reply to WhipTheHip)
Profile   Post #: 59
RE: The Hubble Deep Field: The Most Important Image Eve... - 9/8/2006 7:36:22 PM   
WhipTheHip


Posts: 1004
Joined: 7/31/2006
Status: offline 		I have started a religion that requires no God.  I am building a community
of likeminded people.  My religion only requires us to understand the
mathematical principle of reciprocity.   If we want others to respect us,
cooperate with us, to care for us, we have  to respect others, cooperate
with others, and care for others.   In my religion, greed is evil, Ayn Rand
and Neitzche were evil, and selfishness is evil.  We worship compassion,
altruism, loving-kindness, understanding, and patience.   We are not
pacifists.  We have no dogma.  We strive not to judge others, to forgive
others, to help others. to help the needy, the orphan, the disabled, the
emotionally disturbed, the  autistic, and the poor. We treat others
how we would want to be treated if we were in their place with their
tastes, their assests, and their weaknesses.  We care about all sentient
life forms.  We worship no God and no human.  We don't collect
guns or believe the Feds are out to get us.  We don't serve poison
Kool-Aid.  We don't kill famous actresses.  We don't believe in UFOs
and castration.   We don't believe in being armchair philosophers.
We are all about deed and action.    If we don't help each other and
the world, no creator will do it for us.   We reward altruism, and
discourage selfish behavior. 

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen
Ultimately, science says that all we are and everything else is, is the interaction of particles and energy.
This means that there is no reason to anything except that which we choose to put to it, and which reasoning and meanings are worthless conjurings that are misleading to what is real.
Science therefore consequently suggests that concepts of morality are equally worthless. So, I need not control myself in relation to the harm or even killing of others, since such actions are merely the result of chemical reactions at particle and energy levels. Similarly, I cannot be held responsible for any harm or killing I do, because those results were a consequence of natural molecular interactions. There is nothing to prevent me doing as I please either, since fear of reprisal is nothing more than another set of molecular interactions and therefore as worthless as the anger that brought about the attack.

Does this explain anything about why murder is wrong, how it affects victims' families and friends, what sort of person I must be and how desirable it is to control our emotions? No. I have yet to come across any hard bitten, pure scientist who would behave in the way described above, even though such a world is that suggested as real by science.

We need beliefs just as we need science. When we had religion without science it led to all manner of evil - if we dismiss religion and adopt pure science I can only think it would be worse than before.
E


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(in reply to LadyEllen)
Profile   Post #: 60
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