Do you really want to know the truth? I don't think so.

[Katazia]

Laser,

…..just accept for the sake of the exercise that man was designed by someone, never mind how or why. Your job is to answer for what purpose.

Unfortunately this is an invalid starting point and your analogies are equally invalid.

Take the watch for example: It appears to have been obviously designed by intelligence and that intelligence was man. But if true then why didn’t ancient man have wrist watches? An apparently silly question but nevertheless fundamental to why anything and everything exists.

With everything that we appear to have designed we find that there is nothing that we have designed from scratch. Everything, without exception has been the result of evolutionary processes. Take the watch for example – here is a link that describes the history of time keeping and clearly shows an evolutionary sequence from crude and simple devices right through to atomic clocks. At each stage simple changes and mutations were made that improved the final result.
The Evolution of Time Keeping

Your example of bridges is similar The Evolution of Bridges

And how about this to show how computers have evolved The Evolution of the Computer

If the modern computer was designed why didn’t we start with the modern microprocessor from the outset?

And how about life - The History of Life

I strongly recommend that before you continue with your current line of reasoning that you read the book by Richard Dawkins – The Blind Watchmaker. This should convince you that the creator concept is really rather foolish.

The Blind Watchmaker

I trust that helps you evolve your understanding of reality a little further.

Kat

 

[Raithere]

Yes, I agree. It is important to be intellectually honest. I find most people fail that test.

I tend to agree.

It's a measure of how badly you want to know the answers to the questions about the world.

I disagree. While I find empathy and working on empathetic solutions to problems to be ethically correct, truthful answers are sometimes brutal. Most people try to dodge harsh answers in favor of those that appease their emotions.

The world is indeed full of lies and so are most religions. But I don't think that the real answers need be complicated or inconclusive.

It depends upon the nature of the problem. Most human, ethical, metaphysical, and epistemological problems are complex and often irresolvable. People like to have simple solutions that they can easily and completely understand. The problem is that the world is unimaginably complex. Simple answers typically ignore many factors.

People who try to mislead or don't know what they are talking about often make their answers sound complicated or inconclusive to disguise their real motives.

And sometimes they make their answers overly simplistic, drawn in over generalized and improperly categorized vagaries rather than a realistic examination of the facts.

~Raithere

 

[(Q)]

Remember, just accept for the sake of the exercise that man was designed by someone, never mind how or why. Your job is to answer for what purpose.

If man were designed for a purpose, that purpose would be clear to every man. If the purpose was not clear and it was the duty of each man to find that purpose, each man would eventually come to the same conclusion of purpose, one way or another.

But no man knows the purpose of man, so either the purpose was lost throughout the ages or a purpose simply did not exist. And if it was lost, then the concept of design for purpose is self-contradictory.

The conclusion is that a purpose does not exist.

 

[Katazia]

Purpose requires the existence of an originator with needs for that purpose - there is no evidence of such a thing neither does it appear that one is necessary.

Neither is there justifciation to assert that everything must have a purpose.

Kat

 

[spidergoat]

I think that very few of you would be willing to spend even one minute of your time to find out whether this person who said they had the answers was telling the truth.

Anyone that says they can tell you the truth is lying!
The truth that can be told is not the eternal truth.

 

[Tiassa]

What if someone knocked on your door and said they had the answers to the questions mentioned above and the other great questions about life and they offered to tell you everything you wanted to know about God and the purpose of life?

(1) Some Atheists don't want to know anything about God.

(2) Some theists realize that you cannot know everything about God, and therefore realize the offer as false.

(3) Some agnostics realize that you cannot know anything about God, and therefore realize the offer as false.

In light of those points:

• Generally there are other cues to go from. The other day, two fellows offered to tell me about God while clutching a Book of Mormon. I told them I'd rather they have a nice day than a bad one, and shut the door in their faces. A couple of weeks ago, two rosy-cheeked rubinesque women with Bibles showed up on my doorstep. I advised them to have a good day, else I would be obliged to ruin it.

• If some person shows up bearing absolutely no cues whatsoever and makes such a general offer, the test question would be something like, "Can that truth be known?" or "How does the lack of a holy text in your hand qualify you any more to such secrets?

You don't want to know. The more I read this forum the more I realize that the vast majority of people - and that means almost every person who uses this forum - simply does not want to know the truth.

Most people don't understand or agree that there is a "Truth" to be found. Others see the truth as something rather quite narrow.

Have you ever seen Mimi Rogers (and David Duchovny, but he's not important here) in The Rapture? It's a freaky movie all around, but there's an odd scene where Rogers' character tries to fake conversion and enlightenment. She cannot possibly pull off the ruse, as she has no idea at this point what she's describing or seeking.

Two presuppositions that must be in place for a door-to-door enlightener to meet success:

(A) The target must believe in such secrets and Truth.
(B) The target must accept that such secrets and Truth can be known by a single mortal being.

It is well enough to presume that if the first two are met, the target also believes that attaining such Truth is important.

But it's a little like having Saddam Hussein on your doorstep offering you his latest tract on tips for good government.

• Yeah, right. He's qualified. He may have spent decades in power, but there was little good about his government.
• So what if I don't recognize Saddam? (Perhaps God has blinded me to such a prejudice.) At that point, isn't it a subjective comparison of what constitutes good government? I don't trust the GOP, for instance, and I'm wary of the Democratic Party, and sure I cheer when the ACLU finds itself committed by principle to defending scoundrels. But that guy foisting copies of the New Federalist in the University District, the LaRouche table across the street from him, the American Communists with their 1980s proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.00/hour . . . do I really trust their ideas of good government?

In the end, we come, strangely, to the idea of "submission." At 30, what could possibly reduce me to such a childlike sense of awe that I will sit and accept without question?

Now ... someone brings whatever that is to my doorstep ... yeah, they'll have my attention.

But let's remember that with knowledge comes responsiblity. What if learning the truth meant that you would have to drastically change the way you live? Would you still want to know?

I think this is a dynamic issue, subject to four-dimensional considerations. I think it may well be a general topic of its own. (People accustomed to my longer, oft-seeming digressive posts ... please note how short this portion of the response is. Three- or six- or ten-thousand words could go here, and I still wouldn't necessarily be able to state it clearly.)

I think that very few of you would be willing to spend even one minute of your time to find out whether this person who said they had the answers was telling the truth.

Depends on the cues. Sometimes it takes less than a minute.

Start with a simple example: The person at my door is holding a Bible. That cue takes less than a second to perceive.

A comparison can take place here. Let's imagine, just for argument's sake, that this is the one person who truly understands that Truth.

I guarantee you that s/he wouldn't be going door-to-door. Given that, in this example, the person has a Bible, we might go so far as to say that should God, understanding the problematic aspects of door-to-door sales in urban and suburban America, would send his lamb in such wolf's clothing would be a strong indicator that God simply needs to f@ck off. It would be an indicator of an other-than-benevolent Supreme Overseer. In the case of the Bible, God loves us so much that He would sacrifice His Son, yet would send further revelation in the guise of the very charlatans we have learned since Jesus' day to avoid.

That person with the True Revelation would have a better way of communicating the idea. How is it that someone might have knowledge of the Truth and the Wisdom it brings, yet would restrict themselves to such an ineffective means of transmission? I have not found a satisfactory resolution to the issue. In fact, the only resolution I can find is acute childlike acceptance; and in this case acute childlike acceptance is not a possible option, since the issue is whether or not people would spend even one minute of their time to find out whether or not this advocate was genuine.

So if this person isn't bringing anything tremendously new, something "We haven't heard before," that Bible is still a cue that the Truth being sold is not true.

There are ... at least four different sects of Christianity within walking distance, although I'd prefer to bike two of them if I was compelled to attend. I haven't actually gone down the main road in the other direction very far, so there might even be more. I just know that I tell people to look for a landmark before turning onto our road, an international, intersectarian church with a big banner out front ... take the next left. (Whenever I leave it to just reading street signs, people seem to have trouble.)

At any rate ... there are four churches within walking distance. Catholics, nonsectarian and undetermined ("World Harvest Church"), Seventh-Day Adventists, and a combination, I think, of Episcopalians and Korean Baptists . . . .

We've also had evangelists from the Latter Day Saints and the Watchtower Society. Six, possibly seven sects who come to my door throughout the year. This is the most diverse offering I've ever experienced. Typically, it was just LDS and the Watchtower. I don't think the SDA's or the Catholics are actually going door-to-door, so it's hard to figure just who's behind the flock of evangelists and charity salespeople.

But none of them are bringing anything new.

These are all existing movements. None of them have succeeded. Depending on one's criteria a strong argument can be made that most have screwed things up worse than they needed to be.

In the end, Laser Eyes, you ask an interesting theoretic question because it is a largely-implausible situation. Neutralized and generic as you put the question ... I look forward to the day someone so nondescript and so without an apparent vulgar stake shows up on my doorstep. In the meantime ... I can bring down bad acid trips under the right circumstances, but there is no effective method I know for countering the hallucination that such vital Truth as origins and God can be delivered door-to-door.

I think that you don't want to know the truth.

I reiterate that most people don't understand or agree that there is a Truth to be found.

Before I dropped out of college, I met a few PhD's who were, to put it mildly, stupid. They were practically idiot savants. Some were incapable of mundane tasks such as cleaning themselves. The sanest one I knew of was a head-case who, in his academic days, had a Barbie doll collection. One day he snapped--people still point arbitrarily to tables in the library and say, "It was like that bit in that Val Kilmer movie. It was right there where he melted down."

Uh, Bob? This is a new wing of the library. It wasn't here when he cracked.

So anyway, the guy apparently was found near death in his room after several days. At the hospital, they extracted the heads of his Barbie dolls from his stomach

Ten years ago, he wore plaid skirts and longjohns, sat unkempt on the streetcorner making small sculptures out of soldering wire, coathangers, paperclips, or whatever, and muttering short bursts of wisdom that never made any sense. In ancient days, one might have mistaken him for a prophet.

Less extreme, of course, are those who spend so much time with their work as to not have what we consider normal lives. Take some of these people out of their element, and you could make a two-star comedy feature out of it.

Heck, there's Bill Gates, and he doesn't even have a PhD. The guy built the most impressive commercial empire I know of, but whispers around town are scandalous when he and his wife make the gossip pages. Apparently the man rocks in his seat like a child and chews ice loudly at the opera. It's not that he's going out of his way to be rude, but that his mind is somewhere else entirely.

On that note, I know people in the tech industry who can't be bothered with anything abstract. Wars? As long as we get our money's worth. Stock market down? Who cares, as long as my stocks hold out. Joblessness? Until the Bush recession, our tech folks could say, "Who cares? We're safe." I remember one night, a jazz show at the Rainbow, some friends of mine didn't stop talking the whole night. They were testers, and had hauled two honest-to-God coders out with them. They didn't stop talking tech--specifically, work-related tech--the whole night.

It's not that any of these people are necessarily uneducated, ignorant twits. But this kind of obsessiveness is crippling. A friend of mine dragged one of his buddies over to my place once to smoke bowls. Some other friends showed up. Afterward, my buddy said, "Dude, that was amazing. I haven't actually seen a woman in over a month. Except for the butch dyke in our department, and she hasn't seen a woman in over a month." And then his buddy looked at him and said, "And?"

Silence, wind, tumbleweeds. My buddy skipped the cursory homosexual joke. It was an amazing moment.

It's not that there's anything morally wrong about it, but here we're talking about a rather intelligent chap who is so wrapped up in his work he actually prefers to ignore his sexual impulses. It's one of those "had to be there" moments. Apparently he's comfortable in an environment where you come to know who's where based on the mingling of human odors around the office.

The point being that if you go in front of any of these people, save the wire-sculpting head case, and insist that they are ignorant of the Truth, it will be taken as an affront. But none of them, save perhaps the wire-sculpting head case, actually understand the relative magnitude of the Truth.

Sure, I make a big deal about the guy not being able to notice women--or people in general anymore--but it's a fairly common symptom to a certain degree around the industry, especially as a product scrambles toward shipment.

In the end, though, it seems that what these oddballs have in common with everyone else is enough concerns on their plate that they're not looking at the art of the meal. It's enough for them to just keep chewing.

An old character type from American middling visual media is the classic working man, who likes his food simple, his football live, and his beer cold. A decent man, a smart man, a hardworking man. For comedy bits, he doesn't care for caramelized onions or fifteen-dollar slabs of portabella served with rice. The art of cooking was useless to such a character, the truth of well-made cuisine of no practical value.

Or I think of my father ... for years he drank the cheapest beer he could buy. It was only after his children were old enough to be proper beer snobs that he took the micro and craft brews seriously. It's great to hear him talk beer now. And hearing him talk wine, too. It's not so much that he wants to be a beer snob or a wine snob, but that he can finally communicate his affinities to people who actually care to talk about such things. He now understands that there is, in fact, an art behind brewing and winemaking, and that the art is not entirely extraneous.

Simple things: the food on your plate, the beer in your glass. Or we could look at another classic American standoff: football. My father, in what I think were his happiest days, was a football coach. And a pretty good one, apparently. It may actually be that part of the reason he and my mother eventually came apart was that she wasn't a "football wife." Now, that's a particular term that I use with a specific definition, but what it refers to is a classification of women that occurs when viewing sports in the context of the "gender battles." A football wife knows the game somewhat or thoroughly, tends to speak loudly--especially when drinking--and is generally more informal in the settings I came across them. My mother was a quiet, considerate, light-drinking (if at all) wife and mother. In such a comparison, we might reduce the issue to the art of the game versus the idea of boys playing boy games. My father, a coach, sees the intricate variables of the game. My mother ... doesn't. She's not an annoying person in this respect, but she doesn't like hunkering over a tavern table with a beer talking the game.

Think of golf or baseball. Some people find it boring to watch. Others see mysteries of the Universe.

And that's really the whole difference. Some people don't care about the divine truths any more than they do Tiger Woods' sense of "touch" or Pedro Rodriguez' golden arm. They'll care about it when Newsweek tells them to care about it.

Hmm ... how long can I keep this up? It occurs to me that we could make further delineation insofar as we must account for the degrees between the Newsweek conscience and folks around here.

For some, Truth is an abstraction and a waste of time. For others, it is a mystery of the Universe. Still others find it to be their whole Universe. And in this, we accidentally revisit an old question:

• "What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer."

 

[Q25]

....Sure you may have intellectual curiosity about certain questions - Is there a creator? What is the nature of God? What is the purpose of life? - but do you really want to know the answer to these questions?

purpose of life is living imo.

every lifeform is a creator.

and since matter/energy/the stuff the universe is made of cannot be destroyed only changed it must have always existed in some form or shape,its eternal me thinks.

making up some imaginary gods is for people who refuse to see the reality,the evidence of evolution.

 

[LostInThought7]

Quote>
We humans are designers. We design things and we build them. We design and build bridges and cities and houses and watches and clothes and a billion other things. When we design something we do it to achieve a certain purpose. We wouldn't try to live in a bridge and we wouldn't try to use a shoe to tell the time. Everything is designed to function in a certain way.

We humans eat. Look at that rock. What does it eat? Oh, wait, someone else has already argued this. But, yeah, basically for the time being, I believe that existance just is...our highest "Purpose" is to eat and breathe and reproduce and look out for our own and take shits and not die.

A better question is: "Why does existance exist?"

(No one comes to my door wanting to talk to me. I have had to go to Mormon eldars' houses before to talk to them about what they believed to be the truth.)

A lot of people may not want to know about truth, but I'm fairly sure that the majority of people on here has spent at least some quality time truly searching.

 

[one_raven]

I'm wrong am I? Let's test it. Have you ever heard anyone in the street or has anyone ever come to your home preaching some kind of religion? Did you say to them: "I'm interested in learning the truth. I don't know if what you say is true or not but I am willing to listen and consider it." Since you say my opinions are wrong then this must be what you do every time or you already know the truth, which is it?

I have been trying to learn about different religions ever since I was about 8 or 9, when I decided that the Catholics (my family) couldn't possibly be more wrong.
I ordered that free Mormon Bible on TV, and had quite a few talks with them over a few weeks.
A friend I had in teh Army was a Mormon Elder, and I went to Church with him and a Bible study session.
When Jehova's Witnesses come to my door, unless I am terribly busy, I invite them in and offer them something to drink. I usually ask questions that they can't answer (not my aim, just a point of fact) and they say they will talk to others in the congregation and get back to me. (only one has ever gotten back to me, and I had him and his more knowedgable partner over the house several times)
I have been to a few different Christian Churches of different denominations.
I have read some of the Christian Bible (not all).
I have read "The Teaching of Buddha".
I am reading The Vedas.
I have discussed Judaism with many Jews.
I have met a few Taoists and discussed different viewpoints with them.
I have had conversations with Wiccans (tries not to laugh).
I have spoken to Satanists.
I have had endless hours of discussion with a Muslim that was a Mason for over 20 years.
I even used to be friends with a Satanist who, in a moment of clarity (while wtching a televangelist on TV) realized the truth, and eventually became a Christian minister.
The list goes on and on spanning the past 20+ years of my life.

There is one thing that has consistently rung true over all these years with all these people.
The ones that have claimed to have all the answers have invariably had the least to offer.
Most of them knew less about their own religions than I did, and knew next to nothing about other religions, save the propaganda they were fed by their church elders.

So, in reality, you hypothetical situation simply doesn't hold water, in my experience thus far.

However, I will run with it anyway.

If I met someone that truly did know the one indisputable "Truth"...
If he knew everything and was offering to bestow this knowledge upon me...
I can't think of a single thing I wouldn't give, or a single thing I wouldn't change about my life as a result of this knowledge.
I think the only line I would not cross would be taking the life of a loved one.
Beyond that, bring it on!

 

[Dr Lou Natic]

I guess its about time a crazy cult worshipping nutcase showed up at sciforums.
I do want to know the truth laser eyes, and I'm about 50 thousand million times closer to it than any doorknocking jackass on the globe.
You'd have to be a straight up idiot to be like "damn I really want to know the truth about the universe" and then wait for zombies in suits to show up at your front door and be like "finally!" and believe every word they said with an "oooooohhhh, so thats how it is, thanks, its about time someone told me".
The only people involved with any of this crap are sad insecure frightened weak people, I don't even think they truely believe it they just can't accept the cold hard world as it really is.
Its all about the natural fear of death all living organisms naturally have. Humans are imaginative so fantasise about wonderful scenarios where you live forever after you die and people are also spoiled and can not accept the concept of dieing, kind of like the little kid that won't accept the fact that his mother has no money in the bank, he just refuses to believe it because he wants candy so bad.
Religious people are weak, spoiled, obnoxious, stupid people, lets be realistic.
I already know this, so if a couple of them come to my door knocking, I won't assume they have the answers to the universe, that would require the brain of a retarded child who was raised in a sealed white room, I will tell them to get the fuck off my property before I release the hounds.

 

[Hevene]

I don't need someone to tell me the truth. I follow my feelings, I grow from my experiences, and certainly I wouldn't take anyone words as THE TRUTH just because he/she claimed to know the truth. I will consider and disscuss my truth with them and see which one works at that moment to create what I want in my reality. There is no right or wrong, simply what works and what doesn't.
I'm not religious. Religion asks you to take their words as the way it is, they don't allow you to ask questions or you'll be send to hell or whatever. They don't allow you to think as thinking will inevitably lead to questioning and that threatens their very existance.
Like I always say: My way is not a better way, my way is merely another way. Let's just give eachother a little respect, can we?

 

[Medicine*Woman]

purpose of life is living imo.

every lifeform is a creator.

and since matter/energy/the stuff the universe is made of cannot be destroyed only changed it must have always existed in some form or shape,its eternal me thinks.

making up some imaginary gods is for people who refuse to see the reality,the evidence of evolution.

----------
M*W: I agree with you whole-heartedly!

 

[Calculusaurus]

sweet, we scared laser eyes away

 

[Aaron Rider]

Laser eyes,

"So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. Luke 11:9 NASB

--Aaron

 

[Jan Ardena]

Laser Eyes,

That's right. You don't want to know. The more I read this forum the more I realize that the vast majority of people - and that means almost every person who uses this forum - simply does not want to know the truth.

The truth can only be one thing, and i believe every person on the planet knows this one thing, but that "thing" is reflected differently through every being. An analogy would be "air", air is one element, it is pure and uncontaminated, but if you go and stand outside a KFC, it appears to have qualities of fried chicken. This is not wrong, it is truth but it is not the whole truth. The problem is we have become complacent due to our egos. Scientists, philosophers, religionists and non-religionists all reflect the truth, it is impossible not to, but when mixed with our own limited perceptions, it can easily becomes perverted and degraded, IMHO.

Sure you may have intellectual curiosity about certain questions - Is there a creator? What is the nature of God? What is the purpose of life? - but do you really want to know the answer to these questions?

I believe we do, but for most of us we accept on condition.

What if learning the truth meant that you would have to drastically change the way you live? Would you still want to know?

Here lies the crooks of the matter, we are generally not interested in changing the way we live, the more {materially} comfortable we are, the more we wish to remain that way. Atheism, in that regard is the easy way out, which is why it is so appealing. Religionists come to a point where they are reluctant to change their ways, so they alter their religion to a more acceptable standard, and as such the religion has no value.
It is inevitable that "atheism" is eventually becoming the mind-set of the future.

Jan Ardena.

 

[Katazia]

"Faith: not wanting to know what is true." --- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Kat

 

[Hevene]

What is truth to you? It's up to our perception, limited by our experiences, our beliefs and our current level on the wheel of life.

 

[Katazia]

Truth is that which conforms to reality. Gods, the supernatural and spirits have yet to be shown as real, and to claim they are true is at the very least very premature and certainly irresponsible.

While what is perceived as true is a matter of individual focus it cannot be said that what is true is dependent on perception. Ultimately truth will tend to be absolute and what is missing is the ability of everyone to agree on sensible, objective and rational perceptions.

The solution is education and in particular a focus on critical thinking; methods that allow us to determine and agree what might be, could be, and is true. Unfortunately religions stress emotional spiritual revelations – the opposite of rational thought. Until schools and education authorities take up the challenge of teaching people how to think then we are likely to be at the mercy of irrational emotional religionism and superstitions for some time to come.

Certainly unilateral declarations that “God is truth” or “God is in us” are unjustifiable and most likely just puerile nonsense.

Kat

 

[Flores]

That's right. You don't want to know. The more I read this forum the more I realize that the vast majority of people - and that means almost every person who uses this forum - simply does not want to know the truth. Sure you may have intellectual curiosity about certain questions - Is there a creator? What is the nature of God? What is the purpose of life? - but do you really want to know the answer to these questions?

What if someone knocked on your door and said they had the answers to the questions mentioned above and the other great questions about life and they offered to tell you everything you wanted to know about God and the purpose of life? What would you do? Would you invite them in? Naturally you wouldn't know at first whether they really knew the truth or were just full of crap. But would you be prepared to spend time to investigate it? How much of your time would be worth the chance of learning the answers to these questions? But let's remember that with knowledge comes responsiblity. What if learning the truth meant that you would have to drastically change the way you live? Would you still want to know?

I think that very few of you would be willing to spend even one minute of your time to find out whether this person who said they had the answers was telling the truth. I think that you don't want to know the truth. You guys have shown that you will believe what you want to believe. You will believe whatever allows you to continue acting the way you want to, lest some inconvenient truth be thrust upon you.

You are simply wrong. Christian missionaries come to my door a lot. I let them in and talk to them about religion. Some of them end up feeling uncomfortable when I start praying (the muslim way). Some of them are just uncomfortable being challenged....

In a summary, it's very hypocritical and wrong to assume that some person out there knows it all and is spreading the truth. The only thing they are spreading is their perception of the truth. The truth is manifest and can not be spread because it doesn't belong to anyone but god.

 

[Siddhartha]

Yes I would like to know the truth. So long as I could trust the source.