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Are you an atheist? I am, and so should you.; (be one that is)
Topic Started: Jul 15 2009, 07:59 PM (4,796 Views)
Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Hey, Crashtest - how refreshing to see a non-nonsensical post of you! :thumb:
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
CrashTest
Jul 15 2009, 10:49 PM
IT, you seem to imply that only god is able to give humans morality, meaning, and a sense of justice - I don't agree with that.

No Crash, you have that all wrong. It is possible that human morality, meaning and a sense of justice are developments apart from God, but it also means that they are entirely ungrounded in anything objective. You simply can't have it both ways. Justice is an irrational ideal for the materialist. Morality is crowd control. Meaning is whatever an autonomous biomachine means by meaning, along with whatever other biomachines he can convince, cajole or coerce into agreement. (and "agreement" is then nothing other than similar response to stimuli among other biomachines).

That is fine, and I have no problem if anyone believes that, but I do have a problem with people who basically think that we are biomachines and then make demands on other biomachines in the name of morality, meaning or justice or empathy or respect or not harming sentient things or any of the other modernist materialist philosophical arguments. If you don't believe in metaphysics, don't try to sell me on justice or morality or meaning.
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We are governed by our own psychology which through nature or nurture, allows us to have a sense of morality and meaning without needing a god. But in sense, as you put it - only to the avoidance of social messiness, our own well being, and harmony amongst our species do we desire to have morals and a sense of right and wrong. No need for a higher meaning, spiritual or supernatural.

Great, and conscience goes a long way, but so? As a rational materialist, you cannot possibly construct an unassailable argument for why an entirely rational materialist should not use you as a slave, or just kill you for his amusement. You can only appeal to something outside of you both -- justice or dignity or empathy or some other such ideal -- that is on your terms only another manufactured value. There is no moral or ethical obligation for your assailant to agree with you since even that ideal can only be on your terms some biochemical process in your brain.
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Our ability to be conscious of ourselves, and the plausibility of god - is just a byproduct of our psychology. The same facets of mind that allow us the freedom to imagine fantastical creations of art, and in our early history - methods of survival and advancing humanity, also play a part in our more basic attempt to explain the universe. It is a default psychological tendency that if influenced or indoctrinated early, takes a very strong foothold of an individual's mind. Some animals have very advanced reactions to stimuli in nature that are both psychological and physiological - our intellect is one of our traits that helps us survive; much like how a chameleon has color-changing abilities or a night animal better vision in the dark.
You claim it is a byproduct -- I think it is evidence of something beyond us. Why do you claim it is a byproduct? And a byproduct of what? Why should brute matter even be able to organize itself into conscious matter? Do you have any actual scientific evidence that raw matter is able to organize itself into conscious matter? Or is that an article of faith?
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Creation and evolution - I think creationism is superfluous. It seems much less likely to me that there is a supreme being capable of creating the universe versus nature and natural selection creating what we know now step by step - so that is why I dismiss creationism as not only unlikely, but only a fallback safety net for human understanding. (Or the lack thereof) It seems to me much more of a stretch to believe in that supreme creator, than it is to believe in what we can actually see with our eyes every day - nature in action.

Where did all this "nature in action" come from? How does it self organize into coherent knowable things? Why did amino acids ever organize from the various atoms? Why did these in turn organize into proteins? How did these proteins form into basic life forms? It is silly at that stage of development to argue some sort of "evolution" as "survival of the fittest" in a noncompetitive environment. All the reverse engineering in abiogenesis has not produced anything to create life. With all of our ability to control lab conditions, we still have not been able to take raw atoms and produce a prokaryote. And beyond that, we can't even take subatomic particles and assemble an atom. And yet you want to claim definitively that there is no force outside of the material world, and we should all join you in that belief? Why should we accept such a belief?

In short, maybe it is all random chance. Maybe it isn't. I think that our capacity for relationship is because the author of the Universe is relational. You think our capacity for relationship has no relationship with anything apart from what you decide to relate to. I just don't see how you can be so dogmatic about your position.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Klaus
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ivorythumper
Jul 16 2009, 12:45 AM
All the reverse engineering in abiogenesis has not produced anything to create life. With all of our ability to control lab conditions, we still have not been able to take raw atoms and produce a prokaryote. And beyond that, we can't even take subatomic particles and assemble an atom. And yet you want to claim definitively that there is no force outside of the material world, and we should all join you in that belief?
Hey, this is a strong candidate for the "non sequitur of the year award"! :tongue:
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 12:49 AM
ivorythumper
Jul 16 2009, 12:45 AM
All the reverse engineering in abiogenesis has not produced anything to create life. With all of our ability to control lab conditions, we still have not been able to take raw atoms and produce a prokaryote. And beyond that, we can't even take subatomic particles and assemble an atom. And yet you want to claim definitively that there is no force outside of the material world, and we should all join you in that belief?
Hey, this is a strong candidate for the "non sequitur of the year award"! :tongue:
Yes, I agree that your statement is a strong candidate for that award. :thumb:
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Axtremus
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LWpianistin
Jul 15 2009, 09:24 PM
But the child is still not the same as the parent. Your argument loses.
Statistically speaking, "most" children do eventually follow the religion in which they were raised. So Kenny's argument wins most of the time, just not all of the time.
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Axtremus
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Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 12:38 AM
Hey, Crashtest - how refreshing to see a non-nonsensical post of you! :thumb:
No no... it's a sensible post.

I wish there's also a companion sensible post on teh woman! :D
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Klaus
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Axtremus
Jul 16 2009, 01:07 AM
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 12:38 AM
Hey, Crashtest - how refreshing to see a non-nonsensical post of you! :thumb:
No no... it's a sensible post.
In classical logic, double negation of a proposition is equivalent to the proposition itself.
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Klaus
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ivorythumper
Jul 16 2009, 12:53 AM
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 12:49 AM
ivorythumper
Jul 16 2009, 12:45 AM
All the reverse engineering in abiogenesis has not produced anything to create life. With all of our ability to control lab conditions, we still have not been able to take raw atoms and produce a prokaryote. And beyond that, we can't even take subatomic particles and assemble an atom. And yet you want to claim definitively that there is no force outside of the material world, and we should all join you in that belief?
Hey, this is a strong candidate for the "non sequitur of the year award"! :tongue:
Yes, I agree that your statement is a strong candidate for that award. :thumb:
Thanks for pointing out that demonstratives are ambiguous only to fools! ;)
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 01:14 AM
ivorythumper
Jul 16 2009, 12:53 AM
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 12:49 AM
ivorythumper
Jul 16 2009, 12:45 AM
All the reverse engineering in abiogenesis has not produced anything to create life. With all of our ability to control lab conditions, we still have not been able to take raw atoms and produce a prokaryote. And beyond that, we can't even take subatomic particles and assemble an atom. And yet you want to claim definitively that there is no force outside of the material world, and we should all join you in that belief?
Hey, this is a strong candidate for the "non sequitur of the year award"! :tongue:
Yes, I agree that your statement is a strong candidate for that award. :thumb:
Thanks for pointing out that demonstratives are ambiguous only to fools! ;)
No ambiguity, Klaus -- I agree with your self referential statement. I thought it was aptly non sequitur. Brilliantly played, old boy!
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
:rimshot:
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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Moonbat
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But you should at least be clear that natural selection and evolution don't explain (nor do they purport to explain) existence itself, let alone the ability of conscious minds to apprehend existence.


They don't explain existence (though the only 'explanation' of existence that could ever be hoped for is that the alternative is logically impossible) but the ability of conscious minds to apprehend the world around them is something explainable - brains that understand the world have been forged under evolutionary selection pressures.

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And if you are just the stuff of rocks, and all value and meaning and significance are just ascribed and social conventions, then there really is no argument (other than the messiness of social anarchy) against the thief or liar or coward or adulterer or against a society that enslaves certain biomachines for the abundance of a certain skin pigment. It simply does not matter at the point. Any appeal to empathy or not inflicting harm on sentient beings or any of the other utilitarian platitudes is only an emotionalist holdover from some defective stage in the development of human consciousness that also believed in cosmic divine forces.


Arguments are always to specific people. There is an argument for someone who, like most humans, has the faculty of empathy, for not hitting someone with a hammer or denying them a job because of their skin colour (just as there is an argument for someone who, like most humans, has the drive for self preservation for not jumping in the lions' den). In fact there is also an argument for someone who doesn't have empathy - the consequences of the law.

In terms of empathy itself I guess it's possible to view our empathy for one another as a 'defect' but you could also see it as something wonderful. The nature of reality is not up to us but our perspective on it is. Either way it certainly doesn't owe it's origin to belief in cosmic divine forces (though i think you can make a case that the reverse is true).

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Which is why Chesterton said the only honest position for a nihilist is silence.


Even now I think we can find satisfying perspectives on this real world - the idea of being part of a self aware universe, sharing common ancestry with all life, being born of star dust and ultimately destined to return to the stars, knowing that everything we ever do echos into the future etc. etc. But this modern scientific view is young, it hasn't had thousands of years of memetic evolution to hone it's narative, to make it familiar and comforting, to weave it in with everyday life. But that will come if we are not silent. We are at a beginning and a beginning of something that i think is fantastic because the truth as far as it is known is so much grander and so much more profound than anything that any of the humans who wrote the various religious myths ever dreamt of. We must not be silent because it is by not being silent that this future narative of scientific humanism, the narative that will be the narative of our species, will take shape.

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But to the contrary of your assertion, I think that order itself conjoined with the ability of the mind to apprehend order is sufficient evidence for at least the plausibility of God.


I don't think it's so suprising that we can notice stuff - there's an advantage to being able to spot patterns, if your ancestors couldn't do it they wouldn't have noticed the tiger in the grasses or the ripe pineapple ready to be eaten and wouldn't have gotten very far. As for the structure of the universe itself well i can't see how you can take it as lending credence to the notion of a divine mind. As far as we have been able to work out minds are the workings of brains. Brains are very complicated things but their origin and workings are gradually being understood, they are bits of the universe adhering to the same fundamental principles (the same structure) that all of the universe appears to adhere to. To then postulate a mind as responsible for the laws themselves doesn't fit - minds appear to be the workings of brains and brains don't even make sense except in context of those laws. That postulate is an anti-explanation in the sense that it would undermine the picture of reality that we have. That doesn't make it impossible of course it just means you can't invoke the nature of the universe as evidence for a cosmic mind.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Klaus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Hey Moonbat, a thread on atheism and it took more than 6 hours before you responded? :tsktsk: :tsktsk:
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
What exactly is "a self aware universe"? Is the universe aware as a whole, or is each subatomic part of it aware, or is it only aware at certain levels of electrochemical activity?

But beyond your poetical and wistful hope, I see nothing that can be more profound and grand than to be in love relationship with the Creator of everything. That is a unifying narrative that chemistry and physics cannot replace. YMMV.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Moonbat
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All the reverse engineering in abiogenesis has not produced anything to create life. With all of our ability to control lab conditions, we still have not been able to take raw atoms and produce a prokaryote. And beyond that, we can't even take subatomic particles and assemble an atom. And yet you want to claim definitively that there is no force outside of the material world, and we should all join you in that belief?


We can take subatomic particles and assemble an atom - fire an electron a proton and you get a hydrogen atom. I guess you can use neutrons and more protons to create other elements presumably the difficulty would scale with the size of the nuclei one sought to create.

Synthesising say a prokaryote from simple chemicals is almost impossibly difficult but it's a technological problem not an ideological one. Just look at nanoscience, we had to work hard to produce very simple molecular machines e.g. a molecular ring on top of a rod that is capped at both ends and that responds to a signal by moving from position one on the rod to position two.

It's hard to do, everything sticks to everything else, it's difficult to predict what reactions will occur beyond relatively simple ones, and because molecules are so small you're dealing with vast quantities so you can't individualy tailor what you want each molecule to do - in a thimble full there are are of the order of 100000000000000000000000 of them!

Biology is ultimately sophisticated nanotechnology so you shouldn't be surprised that we can't synthesise bacteria from acetone and ethoxyethanoate.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Moonbat
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Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 02:09 AM
Hey Moonbat, a thread on atheism and it took more than 6 hours before you responded? :tsktsk: :tsktsk:
:D Sorry, getting slow.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Moonbat
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What exactly is "a self aware universe"? Is the universe aware as a whole, or is each subatomic part of it aware, or is it only aware at certain levels of electrochemical activity?


We are aware of the universe yet we are part of it. The universe is thus self aware. There multiple pockets of this self awareness, we are those pockets. It's just placing some significance in what we are and what we are part of.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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AndyD
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I am not a theist - that would preclude I believe in the supernatural. I am not a deist, that assumes I believe in an non-intervening creator. Agnosticism; no thanks.

I am an atheist.


In some ways you remind me a bit of me, when I was about 15 years old.

I suggest you keep searching, you never know what you may find.


Regards

Andy
Every morning the soul is once again as good as new, and again one offers it to one's brothers & sisters in life.

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Axtremus
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HOLY CARP!!!
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 01:12 AM
Axtremus
Jul 16 2009, 01:07 AM
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 12:38 AM
Hey, Crashtest - how refreshing to see a non-nonsensical post of you! :thumb:
No no... it's a sensible post.
In classical logic, double negation of a proposition is equivalent to the proposition itself.
Double negation as in "no no." :D
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PhJ
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Senior Carp
I had teh sex with 9 women
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Klaus
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o rly? How do you feel about it?
Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman
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PhJ
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Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 03:38 AM
o rly? How do you feel about it?
sore, it's too much for 1 day :weeping:
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
PhJ
Jul 16 2009, 03:38 AM
I had teh sex with 9 women
Damn - you beat me to it. :veryangry:



OK, I had sloppy seconds with 9 women.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
PhJ
Jul 16 2009, 03:40 AM
Klaus
Jul 16 2009, 03:38 AM
o rly? How do you feel about it?
sore, it's too much for 1 day :weeping:
Buy a smaller magazine. ^_^
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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Luke's Dad
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Emperor Pengin
Falling back to old habits, are we?
The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it.
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Larry
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
Atheism: The belief that nothing exploded.....

into something....

backwards... (chaos organized itself)


And you never answered my question, Crash - why do you think evolution and creation are mutually exclusive? They're not - I just want to know why you think they are.

Of the Pokatwat Tribe

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