spiritual life/god.

chendrix · June 5, 2009, 9:07am

I mean, those sound like logical arguments, but only if you assume that a God needs to have been created.

a) Who is to say that time is the same for a God? You speak of “created” and “before,” but these all assume some form of linear time. People of faith tend to believe that God existed before the concept of time came about (did time exist before the big bang?)

b) Just because you aren’t something doesn’t mean you are limited because of that. If as the painter of the flower, you still had the ability to always change any aspect of the painting, you still hold ultimate control over its being. Assuming that God has this power over every thing, God doesn’t need to BE something to be all-powerful over it.

collegehopefull · June 5, 2009, 9:59am

I mean, these are logical arguments against the idea of god, which has no logical arguments for it.

If I’m to work with the assumption that God exists, I’m in the position of providing “proof” for my refusal to believe in something that has no evidence.
Or in other words:

I’m not the one introducing the ideas of creation/God/before.

So, to address a)

Asking about what happened “before” the big bang is kind of like asking what is further South than the South pole. If I can’t use the natural law that god supposedly created to judge god, then there’s no way to have any discussion.

b) As I said before, the ability to discriminate between two things (or many things) are form and function (not necessarily seperate, or causes of each other).
Form and function are differentiated by their limitations with respect to * other * things.
You can’t hold up an apple and say "This is different’', without having some comparandumm that is is limited with respect to… (english fail)

Assuming that God has this power over every thing, God doesn’t need to BE something to be all-powerful over it.
Then “God” is rather like the absent father example I presented.

Let’s assume HE in all his paternalistic glory exists.

<ol>
<li>He’s a jerk for creating people without eyes, limbs, mental faculty,BUT WITH the ability to doubt him and then go to hell for all eternity because of that. Oh, and to supply people with the capacity to amass enormous amounts of evidence against his existence.
1a. He will never, ever answer someone’s faith healing prayers about amputation. Cancer? Yeah, he’ll miraculously cure that. Regrowth of limbs? That’s for the scientists. The same ones that instill doubt.</li>
<li>He doesn’t really seem to care about the whole ‘natural distasters strike at random, without apparent concern about the religious beliefs of the people they maim’.</li>
<li>1939-1945, GONE FISHIN’ !</li>
<li>XXXX-XXXX (other massive wars) similarly; GONE FISHIN’ ! </li>
</ol>

So, if there is a supernatural being aware of everything, whom I have to believe in to go to His Funland In the Sky!!!, I will still reject him.
Do you know why?

I love my mom and dad. They have cared for me since birth. If I were to find out I was adopted, I would STILL love these people that I will always call my mom and dad. I call my mom ‘my mom’ and my dad ’ my dad’ not because they created me, but because they raised me, and cared for me UNCONDITIONALLY (despite my MANY shortcomings)

Now, if a woman and man were to show up and say, “Hey, _____. We’re your real parents. We’ve been sending you letters composed in Aramaic, then Hebrew, then Greek…etc…and finally English! Since you were born! They were all in the post office, just waiting for you to go in and collect them! If you don’t accept this, we will kill you!”

I would pretty much dismiss them as nutters, and phone the police as fast as I could.
And if they DID turn out to be my ‘real’ parents, and if they DID all of those things, I would still love and remain with my current mom and dad. As would any sane person.

Why this scenario, when generalised to the entire world and all people is somehow something that I’m supposed to swallow without protest is beyond me.

Septiambre · June 5, 2009, 11:08am

God created an infinity of time, space, and universes. In some of these cases God created universes where God does not exist. In other universes God created situations where God fades in and out of existence. In other cases God created universes where God is eternal. God created Good, Evil, and Free Will. In some times and places Good dominates Free Will; in other times and places Evil controls Free Will. Hell is a place where Evil has totally destroyed Good; Heaven is a place where good has totally destroyed Evil. Man is just like a little g god except that man has an anus. Man has the potential to evolve to the point where the anus will become a vestigial organ and eventually disappear. If Man reaches that point he can become little g god. If Man becomes a little g god he has the potential to become one with the big G God, but only if he lives in one of the universes that God created where God exists.

treesuss · June 8, 2009, 5:41pm

i feel dumber even entertaining you guys but…this is most certainly not somebody else’s account and i definitely did create it right before posting things on the AEP thread and this one. i did not check this forum again until now…

you’re arguments are laughably laughable. like i said, i feel dumber for entertaining you’re ridiculous notions. i am full well aware of the fact that this society does not look favorably upon people of my intelligence and awareness. rather, it preys on people like you to accept the status quo and mold the outdated, antiquated ******** into some palatable horse**** to be eaten up by all the naive, ignorant little sheep like yourself.

i like how after i FORESAW what you were going to say (by mentioning NDEs), you still try and bring it up as some sort of argument. roflmaoJetPack. Hysterical. another notch on the dumbdar for your mentally inferior brethren. when you die, nothing happens. before you accept this fact, you are not worth a reasonable person’s time. i am not justifiably rejecting fundamentalist interpretations and blanketing their stupidity across all believers. it is all believers whose stupdity manifests itself so clearly that i don’t have to do that. it is also you NON-fundamentalists that, like i said, try to draw these lines and say its okay to think there’s a man in the sky and that he gives a **** about you but its complete nonsense to think that the world is flat or that hell literally lies below the earth in a fiery pit.

religion is an artifact of our ignorant past. our current culture (composed of 99% ignorant masses) re-enforces its grasp on society because it has been doing so for hundreds and hundreds of years. we are now breaking away from it, and the point of what i’m trying to say is that when otherwise INTELLIGENT people like possibly yourselves (that go to cornell and all that jazz) make concessions to religion or even accept parts of it themselves, they are really being counterproductive to the intellectual revolution of the 1600s and onwards, culminating in a modern age where all basic questions about life, death and meaning can be answered. maybe you accept these absurd belief systems because you are fearful of a world where 99% are decieved and most of the other 1% are apathetic at best. where most people live horribly useless and meaningless lives that they justify because of some better end once they die. its extremely sad, and its your intellectual duty to come to grips with it rather than to facilitate its perpetuation. everything is meaningless, we are nothing but organized particles, maybe we’ll find something in the vast cosmos in the future, maybe we won’t…get…the…****…OVER IT!

and let me also lol @ bringing up philosophers that lived in even more horribly and ridiculously biased cultures and times as today. if their rusings even give you so much as an intellectual tickle then, again, you should look extremely closely at yourself in the mirror. use your brain. do you want to perpuate this ****ed up status quo or do you want to help move us towards the future faster? please GOD pick the latter. for the sake of all of us, it is your duty as a reasonable intelligent person (and i’m giving you the benefit of the doubt here, obviously).

if i sound militant, its because i am militant. if i sound like an ****, its because i am an *. if i sound like i would * people off saying these things in real life, its because i have said these things in real life and *ed people off. its taught me to not try and impose what i know to be true on those so caught up in their own insecurities and inability to grasp the truth that the words athiest, agnostic and anti-religion make their blood boil. but i’ve done a fairly successful job of letting those that i give a * about know what i’m thinking. and many of my friends (even some with a religious upbringing) definitely look at the world in a more reasonable manner partially because of me. and so if its at all unclear, you’re insults and absurd counterpoints do not phase me or even make me think at all. i’ve thought it all out before and heard all of your kinds’ absurdities before. all you’re doing is bothering me and making me shake my head in disgust.

by the way, if you read my other post or not…i’m graduating early from the hardest major in this school and i’ve earned the right to fancy myself intelligent. if you believe that the crap that was thought up two-thousand plus years ago has any relevance today, then you QUITE SIMPLY do not.

TchaikovskyPiano · June 8, 2009, 9:12pm

^I hope you’re not this counter-productive in real life.

OP: Please do not let the above post discourage you. There will always be militant people wherever you go, both religious and non-religious. Many Cornellians are not particularly religious, but the vast majority are at least courteous.

theslowclap · June 8, 2009, 9:26pm

Look man, let’s say you are the smartest human to ever walk the earth. First, I would like to congratulate you on your brilliance and ability to brag on the internet. Second, I challenge you to say something of substance. Third, go search for “ad hominem fallacy.”

Check mate.

In case you don’t get it yet, let me break down your entire argument you’ve had your entire life. Here it is:
“Oh look at me I’m so smart. Everyone else is stupid. I look so good in the mirror. Therefore, my beliefs are superior.” That argument doesn’t make much sense if you ask me. In fact, out of all the other stuff people said, I think it is the worst argument yet. So go take a nap, stop being so cranky that other people have different views on the world, and realize that you are in fact trying to impose your beliefs.

dontno · June 8, 2009, 11:45pm

@ treesuss:

All the responses that will follow will criticize you for having the audacity to call yourself smart (it’s a sin in modern society for some reason). Then they will call you close-minded and tell you to be more tolarent (b/c you should always tolerate people who think diamonds the size of refrigerators are buried in their backyard). Then they’ll tell you there’s so much evidence for ghosts and NDE’s and all that garbage. Then, they’ll attack you some more and call you immature or some other useless ad hominem instead of articulating a counterargument against your claims such as religion being a vestige of our cultural past.

I’ve been through this a million times. They’re so deluded they can’t even see their own feet (I don’t know what that means exactly b/c I just made it up, but you get the point).

chendrix · June 9, 2009, 1:22am

oh, intellectual elitism at its finest.

I got all warm and fuzzy inside. It seems dontno finally found a friend who considers himself as intellectually superior as he does.

In the context of this argument, it’s not a sin to call yourself smart, although something can be said about humility being a virtue.
Rather, it is stupid to presume you are smarter than everyone else because “i’m graduating early from the hardest major in this school” and then because of that flawed assumption then further conclude (illogically) that means your own personal belief is the only right one.

Tsk tsk dontno and treessus, you should know a little about logic. Basing a proof on false assumptions and then finding the conclusions you wanted to doesn’t prove anything ;). 1 + 1 = 3, buddies.

ResurgamBell · June 9, 2009, 2:44am

this thread is TLDR…but i always find it funny how people care so much about what others think when they are all the while struggling to find internal peace…

treesuss · June 9, 2009, 10:28am

false assumptions? that i have enough of a brain to see the truth? hilarious.

i’ve already gone over this and i’m not ready to write another super long post before actually getting some kind of legitimate criticism…but do you not realize that you are doing exactly what i’m saying you would? you are trying to tell me to be more “open” to others beliefs when i’ve already told you multiple times that i have no reason to do so when 99% of people believe the wrong thing. that does not make me close minded. it makes me intelligent. it makes me able to see things as they are. to peel back the thin layer of control and power that they don’t want you to. and to then be able to SEE the world for what it is and to ACCEPT it.

people like you cannot do the second part of that (ACCEPTING) and so you just apologize for and throw up you’re hands in “i dont know, but maybe all these nice people have some idea even though what they think makes no sense and has been disproved for thousands of reasons over hundreds of years”. well i’m telling you to get over it and accept it. the world is *ing ugly. look at the world in the context that the power structures and societal pressures of the past were all a carefully orchestrated farce in order to keep people down, obedient and subserviant. look at the world in the context that nothing matters and that even the entirety of our species will likely have no lasting effect on the universe (especially if we don’t get past these times because of Twelvers, jewish zealots and christian warmongeres). that your life might as well be an instant, and in fact even in the history of our planet, we as a SPECIES are only the last second on a 24 hour clock. that what you do and what you pass on ultimately won’t do very much EVEN if it seems like it does (big business owner, philantropist, volunteer, healthcare professional, etc). start looking at the world how it actually is maybe if you SEE it and ACCEPT it then you won’t waste your time apologizing for the billions of decieved masses. as i’ve been saying all along, its people like you that have half a brain and aren’t willing to use it that are currently a major issue in getting our modern society to move forward. stop apologizing for people that have irrational and ridiculous beliefs and then finally we can start erradicating them and moving forward. if it results in mass suicides or death, who *ing cares. anything is better than ignorance and anything is better than intelligent people like myself being looked down upon for actually seeing things how they are.

treesuss · June 9, 2009, 10:38am

and let me briefly respond to “internal peace”. I am very at peace even though I would not describe myself as the happiest of people. if ignorance is bliss, then knock the smile off my face. yeaaaaaa…

being able to understand and accept the world and to have real ideas about how to move it forward and real issues with how it is currently moving forward is my peace. i take solice in the fact that i know i am intellectually superior to just about everybody. i’ve accepted the world for how it is and understand why it is that way. wanting to change the world and to change people’s perspectives and whom they give deference to should not be confused with not being at peace. unless you’re trying to define peace as being happy and supportive of most peoples. why in the hell would i want to support people (most) that i know have been decieved and ultimately hurt by all those closest to them?? that’s not peace, that’s ignorant bliss. you can have it, i’ll pass…

collegehopefull · June 9, 2009, 10:43am

Holy crap. On a mission much, treesuss?

chendrix · June 9, 2009, 12:14pm

woah there, treesuss. Heil atheist hitler much?

I am not asking you to accept anyone, but you are just as ignorant as the people who blindly believe their faith in God, because you blindly believe your faith in Atheism.

Yes, science has disproven many of the “scientific” things in the Christian Bible, a.k.a. the age of the Earth. However, most people don’t view the bible and their christian faith as a scientific textbook (disregarding fundamentalists). If you look at all religions and philosophies, be them Western or Eastern, old or new, all of them provide a framework of (mostly) agreed upon morals on which to live your life:

Don’t kill, don’t rape/steal/pillage/plunder, be a nice and loving person, extend helping hands, try to always strive to be better, do good things, make the world a better place.
These are noble things that the best of people have (be them believers or not). Some people can recognize and do these things without necessarily having to be told about them. Others have religion to provide these beliefs. Whether people have distorted these fundamental ideologies is a subject of a different debate, but religion can be useful if in moderation and as a guide. It is when people turn to all extremes (including you) that you lose perspective, and ultimately lose understanding.

I can get into an angry rant and say that I have always been and always will be smarter than most people, and then begin to spout out the “truth” and claim that anyone who doesn’t believe me is obviously stupid, since I am smarter than they are. But that’s what you did, and we all know how well that style of reason works.

hellojan · June 9, 2009, 12:33pm

"Christian:
50% chance of a happy eternal life - Happy afterlife
50% chance of nothing after death - Unhappy afterlife

Athiest:
50% chance of burning in Hell for all eternity - Unhappy afterlife
50% chance of nothing after death - Unahppy afterlife

Conclusions:

It’s mathmatically safer to believe in God. Think of it as an insurance policy.
Athiests have a 0% chance of a happy afterlife - no wonder they are always so cranky and arguementative."

This argument is based on the flawed Bayes Theorem - which, as Dawkins says, is usually considered the weakest of all arguments in favor of God’s existence. If there is no evidence for something, as is the case with God, then we can conclude that the chance of God existing is mathematically zero.

No, you say? Okay, let’s use your logic. Either something exists or it doesn’t, right?

Okay, let’s begin with unicorns. Mmmm, no evidence. So, we conclude that there is a 50/50 chance. That’s pretty good! Tell your friends! Better yet, just organize a search party. Just, count me out!

Second, your logic suggests that God can be tricked or pacified by someone who is willing to “play the numbers.” So, God doesn’t care if you REALLY believe? He just wants you to hedge your bets, right? Pretty sad, dude.

hellojan · June 9, 2009, 12:46pm

Soccer_Guy’s Assumptions for believing in Evolution:

“1. The law that all things go from a state of organization to disorganization if left on their own was broken when “nothingness” exploded (Big Bang Theory) - forming perfectly aligned planets around a star.”

Evolution doesn’t speak to this topic at all. Evolution is concerned with how species evolve on earth. There’s nothing extraterrestrial involved.

“2. Gases came together in a ‘soup’ and used the power of lightning from constant storms to become amino acids…perfect building blocks to make life, which came together and formed a living organism.”

The first part is partially true. Nobody has even come close to a proper discussion of the second part.

“3. This organism decided it wasn’t happy like that, and evolved repeatedly. At one point it kinda said ‘self replication is too hard…I think I’ll cut my neccesary sexual organs in half…give one to each new ‘sex’ and in order to reproduce we have to get together!’”

There’s no biologist who is worth a hoot that would agree with what you’ve written here. Science isn’t afraid of religion and it’s not afraid of questions - the best science is that which holds up to criticism and investigation. But, a statement like this proves that you’ve forgone the requisite reading to actually critically analyze evolution and replaced it with fanciful conjecture. So, I won’t validate this with a response.

“4. This organism and its offspring continued to grow and reproduce without ever being wiped out over a course of millions of years, finally forming everything from birds to monkeys.”

All life shares common ancestry. Though, by the time you’re mentioning here, there are many different organisms that grow into birds and monkeys.

“5. The monkeys kept going, eventually becoming primative humans…to the more modern humans we have today.”

Mmmm, all primates share a common ancestor. The idea that concepts of primitive and modern exist are a bit silly. Usually, people using this argument assume that humans are fully-evolved beings. That we are, somehow, the endpoint of all of this work. The truth is that evolution doesn’t stop.

Helvetica · June 9, 2009, 1:19pm

On a slightly different tangent, sorry I have no input on the evolution debate. I was wondering, is there a sizable crowd of atheists and agnostics @ Cornell as well. Christians are great and all, but growing up in rural Arkansas, I have Jesus shoved down my throat everrrrryday. I just want a little refuge.

treesuss · June 9, 2009, 1:39pm

I am not debating the merits of nor am I saying that the ‘moral’ and ethical codes espoused by most religions are not positive things. I am saying that we have enough knowledge about the world today to move forward and implement them without the BS framework surrounding them. Of course there are fundamental human rights and a level of decency and respect that all peoples should share with each other. Anything violating these rights and ‘norms’ (if you will) is deemed a criminal offense in most countries and is dealt with accordingly. What you do to you’re own body, however, should not be included in these criminal offenses and thus one of the major problems religions have left us is restriction of personal freedom in the name of their God. My body is my temple, not you’re God’s. So ■■■■ and don’t tell me what to do. This includes anything from abortion to drugs to suicide and assisted suicide all the way straight through to restriction of freedoms because of any behavior whether its being gay, bestiality, polygamy, and even ‘marrying’ you’re relatives.

Of course there are complex questions regarding children and these rights but these are things that we can work out and debate in an intelligent society. The child abuse that occurs today across the 6+ billion who are indoctrinated by their elders is FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR FAR worse than anything that would happen in a truly enlightened and accepting society. Try and tell a child over the age of 8 who has not been indoctrinated about religion and you’ll be LOLed at. That one fact alone is enough to disprove the utter crap that you aid and abet by conceding that “its actually crazy, but its not that crazy because it says some good things and billions believe it so it CANT be totally ridiculous, right? right? right? right?”. Just because you get cheerful and enthusiastic responses to you’re repeated "right?"s does not mean that you have a sounder viewpoint than me or anyone that thinks like me. It just means that you’re playing into exactly what I’m saying you’re playing into - their hands.

wjhsxc · June 9, 2009, 2:04pm

^ I wasn’t going to comment on any of this, but I question how the most intellectually superior person here has managed to consistently use the wrong “you’re”?
Is that something not taught at Cornell, or did it just slip past you?

chendrix · June 9, 2009, 2:21pm

It must be treesuss, we definitely learn proper grammar at Cornell.

He must have been trying to do his intellectually superior physics homework instead of actually listening in writing seminar.

treesuss · June 9, 2009, 2:29pm

im glad this has turned into a debate about whether or not i am using correct grammar when i’ve neglected apostrophes and capital Is all over the place. i’m glad that that is what you’d like this to turn into. really shows your true colors. in 15 years you won’t write anything it’ll all be transcribed for you based on voice recognition. and i’ll be able to write and understand the software that decides your vs. you’re. i bet you won’t.

spiritual life/god.

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