More than 50% of Americans support Gay Marriage

[quadraphonics]

It took me almost a year to get out of a semi-depressive state because I wasn't quite sure what there was to life without knowing there is life after death or everlasting life. I have to come to a point where my mind has to believe in the possibility of something in order to survive. I am guessing this is because of the way I was grown up? Other atheists don't see to have a problem with dying, or maybe they just never think about it.

Speaking as an atheist who isn't bothered by that concern, it's always puzzled me. If life-after-death renders this life meaningful, then what is it that renders life-after-death meaningful? This is a special case of the larger point: if God explains the origin of the universe, what explains the origin of God? I just don't see how shifting these questions over by one level of abstraction resolves anything at all. You're still left with the fundamental mystery in either case.

This is my belief also. And maybe I need to believe it for me to have purpose in life. Fear of nothing. Love of the Unknown.

? If you fear nothing, and embrace the unknown, then why do you feel a need to have an explanation for what occurs in the unknowable realms beyond death?

 

[Balerion]

Speaking as an atheist who isn't bothered by that concern, it's always puzzled me. If life-after-death renders this life meaningful, then what is it that renders life-after-death meaningful? This is a special case of the larger point: if God explains the origin of the universe, what explains the origin of God? I just don't see how shifting these questions over by one level of abstraction resolves anything at all. You're still left with the fundamental mystery in either case.

It doesn't resolve anything, it simply pushes the question back far enough that one doesn't have to consider it in the moment. I recall once, when first confronted with the concept of mortality (the death of my grandmother) I asked my parents if they, too, would die. My mother said yes, but that it was "a long way off yet." When you really think about it, that isn't any sort of answer. "Yes, but not yet" does not address the concern I had that my parents would one day no longer be around. But it did push it back far enough that I could forget about it for a while. That's what the "afterlife = meaning" gambit offers the faithful.

? If you fear nothing, and embrace the unknown, then why do you feel a need to have an explanation for what occurs in the unknowable realms beyond death?

He doesn't really fear nothing or embrace the unknown. That's simply his pride talking, operating with the belief that there's a safety net beneath him should he fall.

 

[Grumpy]

chikis

I still maintain my point; homosexuality is unatural.

You are factually incorrect. Homosexuality is seen throughout Nature, thus it is Natural.

God made this sex of thing to be enjoyed between the opposite sex, but you guys have turned it to something else out of your own iniquity. Have you ever seen a hen mating with a hen? The answer is no, it would rather be a cock mating with a hen and not the opposite.

If, as you obviously believe, god made the world he also made every homosexual just the way they are.

You are right! In that case, the goverment of those African countries have taken a bold step in chasing such abominable and unpalatable act (homosexuality) away from their domain.

They had the same attitude about Jews in 1930s Germany and we all know how that turned out, that attitude also came from the church, by the way. We need a new word to describe those that persecute gays in your country and religion. Whatever, it is primative and barbarian, not something to be proud of.

I trust the goverment of my dear African countries as far as this matter is concerned; they will never let me down!

You are a fool, some of the most barbarous behavior ever on Earth has been at the behest of African governments. Do you own a machete? "Necklaced" anyone lately? Live in Ughanda? Tootsi? Hutu? You should know better(or learn better).

I assure you, they will even adopt more worser punishement if there is any, to deter people from engaging into this type of criminal act.

I hope the gays shoot you bastards like dogs in the street for your behavior. You use the language of a religion of love and peace to carry out the worst of human rights violations because of your prejudice and bigotry. A man under threat of death for what he is can be the most dangerous man on Earth for his oppressors.

As far as this matter concerned, my opinion = to my facts and nothing can change it.

Says a man with no brains with which to think, just prejudice and bigotry on which to act. We need less stupid people in the world, not less.

I will not answer because you already know it but just trying to make mockery of me.

You make a mockery of yourself. You abandon your humanity in favor of religious bigotry and hatred. You know nothing about what Jesus taught, yet you call yourself Christian.

Have you ever witness where a male dog is putting it penis into the anus of another male dog? Please be sincere.

Yes. In wolf culture all but the Alpha Male and Female practice homosexuality between members of the pack. It's as natural as rain.

I think you obviously need deliverance. I pray that God will visit you just like he visited Pual on his way to destroy christians.

Paul succeeded in destroying the church, he was the founder of the Catholic Church, not the Christian Church.

In the same way, people that advocate evil deserve to be dealt with mercilessly.

Careful what you ask for, what you advocate is the very definition of evil, killing others for being as god made them(as you say he made everything).

I will never see water and opt for blood as the best solvent for washing my face. God made the penis for the vagina and vise versa, but you have choosen the anus as the perfect sheath for the penis thereby disobeying God.
I think the question of how it hurts me is not what you should be intrested in now, rather you should be intrested more about how it hurts God your creator.

You seem to be awfully interested in gay sex, projection? Self hatred? Camoflage? And god, if he exists, made gays just as they are. I don't think he is hurt nearly as much by two guys loving each other as by people killing other people in his name.

MacGyver1968 wrote
However male chimpanzees will fuck other males in the brood to establish their dominance.

I guess you have just told a cheap lie to save your self from this hot agurment, but I assure you, you wont have your way.

Pardon my facts...

"The Bonobo, which has a matriarchal society, unusual amongst apes, is a fully bisexual species—both males and females engage in heterosexual and homosexual behavior, being noted for female-female homosexuality in particular. About 60% of all sexual activity in this species is between two or more females. While the homosexual bonding system in Bonobos represents the highest frequency of homosexuality known in any species, homosexuality has been reported for all great apes"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexual_behavior_in_animals#Bonobo_and_other_apes

Grumpy

 

[quadraphonics]

It doesn't resolve anything, it simply pushes the question back far enough that one doesn't have to consider it in the moment.

I guess... but, unlike your example, I don't see how that really works when it comes to fundamental existential questions. I.e., in your example about your parents' mortality, it does clearly push the issue back in time - you have years, if not decades, before you'll be confronted with the issue, so it's easy to see how a person can lapse into procrastination on those grounds.

But I don't see how that applies to fundamental existential questions. The putative thinker who is kept up nights by the question "where did it all come from? what does it all mean?" doesn't have any visible reason to stop pondering when presented with the answer "God." Does he?

I think it must be a social phenomenon (like all religion - indeed, I think it's a basic, common mistake, particularly amongst atheists of a certain age, to presume at the outset that religion is a question of individual philosophical expression, rather than as a form of identity politics formed to answer various social needs and incentives). I.e., nobody has a satisfactory answer, but they get the comfort of identifying with a larger body of similar people with similar outlooks and the same framework for thinking about them, along with a handy code-word ("God") for recognizing one another.

 

[quadraphonics]

I will never see water and opt for blood as the best solvent for washing my face. God made the penis for the vagina and vise versa, but you have choosen the anus as the perfect sheath for the penis thereby disobeying God.

 

[Balerion]

I guess... but, unlike your example, I don't see how that really works when it comes to fundamental existential questions. I.e., in your example about your parents' mortality, it does clearly push the issue back in time - you have years, if not decades, before you'll be confronted with the issue, so it's easy to see how a person can lapse into procrastination on those grounds.

But I don't see how that applies to fundamental existential questions. The putative thinker who is kept up nights by the question "where did it all come from? what does it all mean?" doesn't have any visible reason to stop pondering when presented with the answer "God." Does he?

To the educated, rational person, no. But to the believer, or the ignorant (and again, I do not mean that in a pejorative sense) it's both the best answer and the only one necessary. My example is even more fitting when considering that God is considered to be the literal father of man; very often the rationale for shutting down one's brain and capitulating to faith is similar to the reasons one might be given for shutting up and obeying their parents: "What makes you think you know better?"

I think it must be a social phenomenon (like all religion - indeed, I think it's a basic, common mistake, particularly amongst atheists of a certain age, to presume at the outset that religion is a question of individual philosophical expression, rather than as a form of identity politics formed to answer various social needs and incentives). I.e., nobody has a satisfactory answer, but they get the comfort of identifying with a larger body of similar people with similar outlooks and the same framework for thinking about them, along with a handy code-word ("God") for recognizing one another.

I'll sidestep the obnoxious "you're too young to understand this" inference, and try to find the point in here. I don't really see how this disagrees with what I've said. I think most believers will tell you that they've questioned their faith, or the universe, and I'm simply talking about the mechanics of how inquiry within a faith is quelled.

 

[Gremmie]

I like getting fucked in the asshole by old dudes while i have an apple in my mouth.:bawl:

To each their own, I guess....BTW.....SOOOOOEEEEYYY...

Sorry, I saw Deliverance a few days ago.

 

[garbonzo]

He doesn't really fear nothing or embrace the unknown. That's simply his pride talking, operating with the belief that there's a safety net beneath him should he fall.

What evidence do you have that there isn't life after death?

We like to call ourselves "skeptics", but sometimes we don't apply that to other areas of our thinking. If you are a skeptic, you should be skeptical of everything, even things that seem very likely and be open to the fact that it may be wrong. This doesn't mean not to trust anything of course. Just acknowledgement that we don't know everything.

My quote remains. I fear nothing and embrace the unknown. I acknowledge the fact that I don't know everything. I embrace the mysteries of life and the unknown. I am a skeptic of everything.

Now there has been wild speculation that we could even be in some sort of computer emulation. Of course it is wild speculation and that is all it is, but what if? What if when we die, we wake up in a different dimension with different laws with different consciousness. With a different LIFE all together, because when you realize that we are just little specs of dust on a big beach of the universe and then get into other dimensions, etc. we are only figuring out mundane things about what we can figure out as humans.

This thing we call science we think is so great and is making advancements every year, every month, every day, but it is nothing to the universe. We are learning what we can learn. What we learn about what we know and what we don't know directly, but we know indirectly with the tools we make. We still know them. So we can only learn about the things available to us to learn. We can never know everything about the universe. Only what is available to us.

Nothing is absolute at all.

Now, I will have to say something ignostic and say that God is a bit poorly defined.

I do not believe an Almighty All-Knowing, Omni-Everything God can exist because of the laws we have found in the universe that God supposedly created. It creates a circular logic. God cannot always exist, and if he did, he put the laws of the universe that we found there to purposely mislead us. This is why I do not believe a God exists that has no beginning. I believe it may be possible for a more powerful, maybe immortal being to have been spawned by whatever. Whether he or they evolved to be that way or not. So I believe there is that possibility.

There is just too much variables to say for a fact that there is no life after death. I don't know how anyone else can say so. If they do, I would like to know their reasoning.

This is why I embrace the unknown. I ADMIT to myself that I do not know anything.

 

[spidergoat]

Life after death is inherently contradictory. For instance, thinking is what the brain does and without the brain, we can't think much less be conscious, so what do you mean by life after death? I've said before, our present inability to understand everything is not a reason to believe something.

 

[quadraphonics]

To the educated, rational person, no. But to the believer,

But, most believers are educated, rational people. Or, as educated and rational as the next guy, anyway.

I'll sidestep the obnoxious "you're too young to understand this" inference,

Dude, don't get your panties in a wad. That wasn't directed at you (or anyone) in particular, just speaking from experience. Nobody implied that you're too young to understand anything. For all I know, you're older than I am. It's just an assumption that I notice is common in atheists below age 30, but which seems to subside after that.

and try to find the point in here. I don't really see how this disagrees with what I've said.

You hypothesized an internal, cognitive mechanism for how the questioning of faith stops, while I hypothesized an external, social one. I think that people "submit to faith" more out of a fear of giving up their position in a social network that supports them (and includes their family, friends, etc.) than out of any kind of philosophical conviction. And I think that this is borne out by the very high correlation between a person's religious convictions, and those of his social circle.

I think most believers will tell you that they've questioned their faith, or the universe, and I'm simply talking about the mechanics of how inquiry within a faith is quelled.

Right. You propose that they arrive at some pretext that allows them to ignore the question, while I propose that they, essentially, decide that the question is less important than their social network to begin with and so drop it.

Although I guess that could amount to half-a-dozen-of-one vs. six-of-the-other, in that the means by which the question gets "dropped" can be exactly the blithe acceptance of some half-answer.

 

[Balerion]

What evidence do you have that there isn't life after death?

Well, the fact that life requires biological function contradicts the notion that life can exist independent of biological function. Even something such as consciousness, which we can't really define, let alone explain, is obviously tethered to the composition of the brain, as we can demonstrate how consciousness is altered when the brain itself is altered. So we at least need biological function to have life, and a working brain to have consciousness. That much is clear.

We like to call ourselves "skeptics", but sometimes we don't apply that to other areas of our thinking. If you are a skeptic, you should be skeptical of everything, even things that seem very likely and be open to the fact that it may be wrong. This doesn't mean not to trust anything of course. Just acknowledgement that we don't know everything.

Of course I'm skeptical. But being skeptical doesn't mean you have to doubt facts. I know gravity exists, so what would the purpose be of being skeptical of it?

My quote remains. I fear nothing and embrace the unknown. I acknowledge the fact that I don't know everything. I embrace the mysteries of life and the unknown. I am a skeptic of everything.

If you fear nothing, you should not require any sort of understanding to make you feel better. And yet you say you do. This is a contradiction.

Now there has been wild speculation that we could even be in some sort of computer emulation. Of course it is wild speculation and that is all it is, but what if? What if when we die, we wake up in a different dimension with different laws with different consciousness. With a different LIFE all together, because when you realize that we are just little specs of dust on a big beach of the universe and then get into other dimensions, etc. we are only figuring out mundane things about what we can figure out as humans.

There's also wild speculation that we're the result of divine injunction, and stewarded by a timeless male humanoid. People can speculate all they want; it would be a mistake to give each speculation equal weight.

This thing we call science we think is so great and is making advancements every year, every month, every day, but it is nothing to the universe.

I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. "But it is nothing to the universe?" What?

We are learning what we can learn. What we learn about what we know and what we don't know directly, but we know indirectly with the tools we make. We still know them. So we can only learn about the things available to us to learn. We can never know everything about the universe. Only what is available to us.

This one always makes me laugh. If it is impossible to know everything about the universe, how is it that you know this? The claim in and of itself is a claim to know everything. Otherwise you'd have no idea whether or not everything in the universe was knowable.

Nothing is absolute at all.

Does gravity not exist, then?

Now, I will have to say something ignostic and say that God is a bit poorly defined.

I do not believe an Almighty All-Knowing, Omni-Everything God can exist because of the laws we have found in the universe that God supposedly created. It creates a circular logic. God cannot always exist, and if he did, he put the laws of the universe that we found there to purposely mislead us. This is why I do not believe a God exists that has no beginning. I believe it may be possible for a more powerful, maybe immortal being to have been spawned by whatever. Whether he or they evolved to be that way or not. So I believe there is that possibility.

The reason we reject an everpresent and timeless god is not because it could not possibly exist, but because it is not an explanation. "God did it" has never explained any phenomenon. Ever. So right away, you're off-track by rejecting the premise for the wrong reason.

Now let's consider your assertion for what may be possible. Ask yourself where this idea comes from, and you'll see that it's nothing more than a reaction to monotheism (you even refer to a possible deity as "God" with a capital "G", which is the name given to the Judeo-Christian Yahweh), which you admittedly discount. So why would your idea based on that mythology be any more valid or worth any more consideration than the one you reject?

You don't have to posit any god-figure. The model works without one, so until one is presented with evidence, why even concern yourself with what kinds may be hypothetically possible?

There is just too much variables to say for a fact that there is no life after death. I don't know how anyone else can say so. If they do, I would like to know their reasoning.

Well, I just gave you some pretty rock-solid reasoning why at the very least there's no reason at all to consider the possibility. If you want me to disprove it, then you're just caught up in the same nonsense as the theist who asks someone to disprove God.

This is why I embrace the unknown. I ADMIT to myself that I do not know anything.

{bold my addition} You said a mouthful there! Earlier you claimed to not know everything, which is a reasonable enough claim, and one that could very well go without saying. Now, however, you say you know nothing, which is an entirely different claim, and one that may or may not be true for you, but is certainly not true from humanity as a whole. Each discovery raises more new questions, so it's true that we're learning more and more about less and less, but to say we know nothing at all is inaccurate.

 

[garbonzo]

Life after death is inherently contradictory. For instance, thinking is what the brain does and without the brain, we can't think much less be conscious, so what do you mean by life after death? I've said before, our present inability to understand everything is not a reason to believe something.

Why do you always have to pick creepy avatars? Are you some kind of metal head? lol I kid, I kid.

You are thinking on what we know. There MAY be things we don't know. There may be more to the brain than we know. We don't know everything, and can never really know if we do know everything about anything.

I've said before, our present inability to understand everything is not a reason to believe something.

No it's not. It's only enough to believe in the possibility. This is what I mean by embracing the unknown. I accept that I do not know. About anything. In this context at least. Universally knowledge is the subject, I guess.

 

[garbonzo]

Well, the fact that life requires biological function contradicts the notion that life can exist independent of biological function. Even something such as consciousness, which we can't really define, let alone explain, is obviously tethered to the composition of the brain, as we can demonstrate how consciousness is altered when the brain itself is altered. So we at least need biological function to have life, and a working brain to have consciousness. That much is clear.

Spidergoat said the same. I responded to him above.

Of course I'm skeptical. But being skeptical doesn't mean you have to doubt facts. I know gravity exists, so what would the purpose be of being skeptical of it?

You don't know gravity "exists" what does "exists" even mean? Does it mean it is real? If we were in a simulation, would it "exist"? "Existing" is poorly defined when we are talking about stuff of this magnitude. Gravity may be only what we know. What we PERCEIVE things. How we perceive them. It exists to us. And it matters to us. Maybe it doesn't matter to other life forms.

If you fear nothing, you should not require any sort of understanding to make you feel better. And yet you say you do. This is a contradiction.

I said I require the possibility of it being true. With this type of philosophy, I can afford to fear nothing. One goes before the other.

There's also wild speculation that we're the result of divine injunction, and stewarded by a timeless male humanoid. People can speculate all they want; it would be a mistake to give each speculation equal weight.

Why not? They can be true. You should recognize the possibility of these things unless there is evidence against it. There are some things that can be proven wrong if they exist within this universe. If (the theory goes that) they don't exist with in this universe, then we cannot use this universes laws to disprove it. This is common sense.

I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. "But it is nothing to the universe?" What?

The universe doesn't care about our advancements.

What I am trying to say is that our advancements are really small and insignificant in the grand scale of the universe, you know? On our scale, discovering the Higgs Boson is a great feat. But that is human scale. Our own scale. It is already known to the universe.

I'm not saying the universe is a sentient being, just a figure of speech of course.

This one always makes me laugh. If it is impossible to know everything about the universe, how is it that you know this? The claim in and of itself is a claim to know everything. Otherwise you'd have no idea whether or not everything in the universe was knowable.

Well no. There are some things we can't possibly know. Which is beyond science to know. Hence the reasoning that we can never prove nor disprove God. Ever. Some things science can not touch. You should know this.

Does gravity not exist, then?

Answered.

The reason we reject an everpresent and timeless god is not because it could not possibly exist, but because it is not an explanation. "God did it" has never explained any phenomenon. Ever. So right away, you're off-track by rejecting the premise for the wrong reason.

I wasn't saying how you reject it. I was saying how I reject it. Is this not correct? How can a timeless God exist if it goes against the laws of the universe which we found? We didn't just invent this up. We found it. We are always finding things in science, never creating or inventing things. So it is impossible for something to always exist within the laws of the universe. I recognize that he can exist beyond our knowledge, but then he would have to have invented our current knowledge, right? So it is contradictory. This is why I say a timeless God can't exist without directly misleading us.

There are fallacies to some definitions of a God. godfallacies.com and Reddit's Atheism FAQ.

Now let's consider your assertion for what may be possible. Ask yourself where this idea comes from, and you'll see that it's nothing more than a reaction to monotheism (you even refer to a possible deity as "God" with a capital "G", which is the name given to the Judeo-Christian Yahweh), which you admittedly discount. So why would your idea based on that mythology be any more valid or worth any more consideration than the one you reject?

You don't have to posit any god-figure. The model works without one, so until one is presented with evidence, why even concern yourself with what kinds may be hypothetically possible?

I don't base anything on any mythology. The God of the Bible came from the minds of humans, meaning it has always been something humans have been capable of rendering.

Hypotheticals don't pertain to anything useful to us. It is just a philosophical question.

Well, I just gave you some pretty rock-solid reasoning why at the very least there's no reason at all to consider the possibility. If you want me to disprove it, then you're just caught up in the same nonsense as the theist who asks someone to disprove God.

I didn't ask you to disprove it. I said you can't disprove it. So you need to recognize the possibility. Thinking inside the box never got anyone anywhere. You can argue from the facts all you want, but if you can't argue something that isn't yet fact, you are nothing.

{bold my addition} You said a mouthful there! Earlier you claimed to not know everything, which is a reasonable enough claim, and one that could very well go without saying. Now, however, you say you know nothing, which is an entirely different claim, and one that may or may not be true for you, but is certainly not true from humanity as a whole. Each discovery raises more new questions, so it's true that we're learning more and more about less and less, but to say we know nothing at all is inaccurate.

It's obviously not meant to be taken literally. I am saying in the big scheme of things we can't know everything and therefore we know nothing. We are a speck of dust on a beach.

On our scale however, we do know things. Lots of things. And we are learning new things everyday. =)

I don't think you ever left Earth in my argument. I have already left the universe. You have to however come back to Earth and our scale as a human in order to think and operate in reality (our reality).

 

[Balerion]

Spidergoat said the same. I responded to him above.

But that isn't really an answer, it's just speculation. You asked for evidence against an afterlife, and I (as did Spidergoat, apparently) gave it to you. That you dismiss it because we don't know everything there is to know about the brain (quite the non-sequitur, by the way; the brain in any case is a biological construct, and upon its death, consciousness ceases. There's no getting around that) means you aren't really interested in an answer.

You don't know gravity "exists" what does "exists" even mean? Does it mean it is real? If we were in a simulation, would it "exist"? "Existing" is poorly defined when we are talking about stuff of this magnitude.

Yes, yes, all of that flighty philosophical garbage about "what does exist mean" may give you hours of stimulation in your armchair, but in the real world you well know what I mean by the word. The concept of gravity is real in any practical sense.

Gravity may be only what we know. What we PERCEIVE things. How we perceive them. It exists to us. And it matters to us. Maybe it doesn't matter to other life forms.

I can't make heads or tails of this, I'm sorry.

I said I require the possibility of it being true. With this type of philosophy, I can afford to fear nothing. One goes before the other.

But then you fear the possibility of it not being true. So, again, you do not "fear nothing."

Why not? They can be true.

You can recognize the possibility without pretending that the idea of a computer simulation is as valid as a more established theory. There are other theories, and they have sound arguments for them; why do you give theories with no evidence or reason the same weight?

You should recognize the possibility of these things unless there is evidence against it.

I do, but I don't pretend that, say, the idea that we're all really molecules in a giant jar of tomato sauce has any real validity. And if we're offering advice, I'd suggest that you should recognize the improbability of things when evidence against them has been provided, such as the case with the afterlife argument. You simply dismissed in it spite of the evidence against it. This makes it seem as if you're not just open to the idea of there being an afterlife, but you really really want there to be one.

There are some things that can be proven wrong if they exist within this universe. If (the theory goes that) they don't exist with in this universe, then we cannot use this universes laws to disprove it. This is common sense.

Again, proof does not exist outside of math.

The universe doesn't care about our advancements.

I don't understand the point of saying this.

What I am trying to say is that our advancements are really small and insignificant in the grand scale of the universe, you know? On our scale, discovering the Higgs Boson is a great feat. But that is human scale. Our own scale. It is already known to the universe.

The universe doesn't "know" anything. It isn't a living organism. It isn't conscious.

I'm not saying the universe is a sentient being, just a figure of speech of course.

Then your previous statement makes no sense. All of that stuff about the universe not caring, and the universe knowing, only means something if you're positing that the universe is a sentient being. If you aren't, then again I have to ask: what are you getting at?

Well no. There are some things we can't possibly know. Which is beyond science to know. Hence the reasoning that we can never prove nor disprove God. Ever. Some things science can not touch. You should know this.

I've already commented about your misuse of the word "proof," so I'll leave that alone and simply say that you could not possibly know if there are things beyond our knowledge. It's not something you could ever possibly claim to know.

Answered.

Poorly, yes.

I wasn't saying how you reject it. I was saying how I reject it. Is this not correct? How can a timeless God exist if it goes against the laws of the universe which we found? We didn't just invent this up. We found it. We are always finding things in science, never creating or inventing things. So it is impossible for something to always exist within the laws of the universe. I recognize that he can exist beyond our knowledge, but then he would have to have invented our current knowledge, right? So it is contradictory. This is why I say a timeless God can't exist without directly misleading us.

I'm not claiming to be a physicist, but you clearly have a very poor understanding of the universe, which is contributing to your confusion. It's quite possible, for example, that the universe itself has always existed, or that an endless chain of universes has always existed. So to say that a timeless god is impossible is incorrect. We simply do not know.

There are fallacies to some definitions of a God. godfallacies.com and Reddit's Atheism FAQ.

Yes, but timelessness isn't one of them.

I don't base anything on any mythology. The God of the Bible came from the minds of humans, meaning it has always been something humans have been capable of rendering.

You seem to have missed the point. I don't know how to make it any more clear. Perhaps try reading it again?

I didn't ask you to disprove it. I said you can't disprove it. So you need to recognize the possibility.

Again, I gave you plenty of reason to not consider it at all.

Thinking inside the box never got anyone anywhere. You can argue from the facts all you want, but if you can't argue something that isn't yet fact, you are nothing.

This is just nonsense.

It's obviously not meant to be taken literally. I am saying in the big scheme of things we can't know everything and therefore we know nothing. We are a speck of dust on a beach.

Well it certainly wasn't obvious, and your explanation of "we can't know everything therefore we know nothing" is nonsensical. How about you just say what you mean from now on?

On our scale however, we do know things. Lots of things. And we are learning new things everyday. =)

What does this mean? On our scale?

I don't think you ever left Earth in my argument. I have already left the universe.

More nonsense. :shrug:

 

[garbonzo]

But that isn't really an answer, it's just speculation. You asked for evidence against an afterlife, and I (as did Spidergoat, apparently) gave it to you. That you dismiss it because we don't know everything there is to know about the brain (quite the non-sequitur, by the way; the brain in any case is a biological construct, and upon its death, consciousness ceases. There's no getting around that) means you aren't really interested in an answer.

This is in effect saying for sure that the sun will rise tomorrow. It is pompousness. What do you mean I am not really interested in the answer? I already know the answer, and any respectable scientist would tell you they know the answer: We don't know.

This is exactly what I mean by you are not thinking above your own ego-centric mind. Not everything revolves around you, or humans. The Earth is not significant in the universe at all. The brain is a biological construct? Sure it is. That is how we define it. This is how we perceive it. That doesn't mean there is nothing besides biological constructs. Consciousness may cease, but we know it is plausible at least to copy the brain, as it is can be compared to a memory disk. Whatever supernatural powers unbeknownst to us, can in effect, be copying all of our "biological constructs". This is even if we use human reasoning, and it makes sense. Much less un-human reasoning.

A computer simulation is the best example of what I am talking about. Am I saying for sure that this is a computer simulation? No. There is nothing we can know for sure. Is it possible? Yes. So does that mean all of my philosophies only pertain to a computer simulation hypothesis? No. It is an example. The best example for our human brain to grasp. The best example for YOUR brain to grasp. So think of it that way in these philosophies. If this is a computer simulation, then all of this is code. It can be changed at any time. Anything is possible. The laws of OUR universe do not pertain to what is outside of it. Understand?

If you cannot understand this, than this is what I mean by you not being able to go past this Earth. I am past the universe in thinking. You are thinking in earthly human terms what is possible and what is not. It is no wonder we are not on the same page!

Yes, yes, all of that flighty philosophical garbage about "what does exist mean" may give you hours of stimulation in your armchair, but in the real world you well know what I mean by the word. The concept of gravity is real in any practical sense.

I have noted this before. What's your point? Why did you even bring up gravity then? My only point was that gravity is what we perceive in human terms. That is all. In any practical sense, we know gravity exists. You would get stuck at a dead end if you keep asking, "Why?" Why does gravity exist? There is no answer for it. That is because our human thinking can only go so far.

I can't make heads or tails of this, I'm sorry.

Well I was watching a discussion with DeGrasse Tyson and Dawkins. You can find it on Youtube. There are only a few. Poetic something or another. Tyson brought up "A Bug's Life" and how for small ant-like ground creatures, gravity doesn't really matter to them. The bartender opened a "faucet" type thing and water was just like a glob of liquid that the bug just drank like that. Gravity doesn't matter as much to them. I am not saying gravity doesn't exist for them. It just doesn't matter to them. What other life forms does gravity not matter to? In this universe? Outside of this universe?

But then you fear the possibility of it not being true. So, again, you do not "fear nothing."

I don't have to fear it, because there is always possibility. So like someone said, it is pushing the clock back. I'll never have to think about it because there is always the possibility until I die.

You can recognize the possibility without pretending that the idea of a computer simulation is as valid as a more established theory. There are other theories, and they have sound arguments for them; why do you give theories with no evidence or reason the same weight?

You are strawmanning. I never said to pretend the idea is a valid one. I said to recognize the possibility. I don't even know what my objective is about why I am debating this with you. I only ever wanted to let you know there is always a possibility about everything, but you are refuting that? ...Wtf?

I do, but I don't pretend that, say, the idea that we're all really molecules in a giant jar of tomato sauce has any real validity. And if we're offering advice, I'd suggest that you should recognize the improbability of things when evidence against them has been provided, such as the case with the afterlife argument. You simply dismissed in it spite of the evidence against it. This makes it seem as if you're not just open to the idea of there being an afterlife, but you really really want there to be one.

I've really already covered this. Improbability is only ever calculated by our own human perception and mind. There is only 1 reality, so it is really 50.50. 1 is wrong. 1 is right. We can throw probability out the window. YOU are thinking human thoughts.

Again, proof does not exist outside of math.

Our math. We invented math, whether you like it or not. Math may not matter or exist outside of our universe.

I don't understand the point of saying this.

The point is that what we do is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

The universe doesn't "know" anything. It isn't a living organism. It isn't conscious.

Well, I gotta go. I'm so hungry I can eat a pig.

Then your previous statement makes no sense. All of that stuff about the universe not caring, and the universe knowing, only means something if you're positing that the universe is a sentient being. If you aren't, then again I have to ask: what are you getting at?

Someone doesn't know what a metaphor is....

I've already commented about your misuse of the word "proof," so I'll leave that alone and simply say that you could not possibly know if there are things beyond our knowledge. It's not something you could ever possibly claim to know.

So then why can't God be proven nor disproven? It is beyond science. It is beyond what we will ever know in this lifetime.

Poorly, yes.

Subjective.

I'm not claiming to be a physicist, but you clearly have a very poor understanding of the universe, which is contributing to your confusion. It's quite possible, for example, that the universe itself has always existed, or that an endless chain of universes has always existed. So to say that a timeless god is impossible is incorrect. We simply do not know.

...So how does the universe always exist, anyway? I'm pretty sure scientists say our universe has a beginning. We don't know anything beyond our universe, which is exactly what I've been saying. You are playing both sides of the fence.

Yes, but timelessness isn't one of them.

I'm making it one. =D Because I can't comprehend why a God would make a law such as time, and then say he always existed, which is incomprehensible to us. If he exists, he is an asshole.

You seem to have missed the point. I don't know how to make it any more clear. Perhaps try reading it again?

What are you trying to get at here? I thought your point was that such a thing as the afterlife was an idea I got from religion? I am saying it is not. It is an idea all humans have. As original as good and evil.

Again, I gave you plenty of reason to not consider it at all.

And I believe I gave you plenty of reason to consider it.

This is just nonsense.

What don't you understand about that? There was a time before evolution was ever considered a theory. If people didn't consider new theories or think outside the box, there would not be much progress in science. Nevertheless, this is a philosophical question, not scientific! Maybe that is the thing you are missing?

Well it certainly wasn't obvious, and your explanation of "we can't know everything therefore we know nothing" is nonsensical. How about you just say what you mean from now on?

You contradict yourself. If it is nonsensical, then obviously I meant something else. If I "just said what I mean" it would take away from my style of writing. I'm trying to get you to think outside of science or human thinking.

What does this mean? On our scale?

Our perception... I don't really know how else to explain it. Think something besides our human thinking. Outside the box. Everything you know is useless in this dimension.

More nonsense. :shrug:

This is what I mean by you still being stuck on Earth. It seems half of this debate is me trying to get you to think outside our scale of human thinking. You may be trying to get too technical or use science where science is unreachable. You yourself admit this. :shrug:

I did have a chuckle at your inability to understand, though!

 

[Balerion]

This is in effect saying for sure that the sun will rise tomorrow. It is pompousness. What do you mean I am not really interested in the answer? I already know the answer, and any respectable scientist would tell you they know the answer: We don't know.

This is a straw man. You asked for evidence that there was no afterlife, and I gave it to you. Ask any scientist, and they'd give you the same--albeit a much more comprehensive--answer. The answer to the ultimate question of "Is there an afterlife" is obviously "I don't know," but pretending that what we do know is irrelevant is foolish.

This is exactly what I mean by you are not thinking above your own ego-centric mind. Not everything revolves around you, or humans. The Earth is not significant in the universe at all. The brain is a biological construct? Sure it is. That is how we define it. This is how we perceive it. That doesn't mean there is nothing besides biological constructs.

But until you can show me evidence of a some alternative, I have no reason to consider it. Just because you don't want to rule it out doesn't mean that we should give it serious consideration without evidence.

Consciousness may cease, but we know it is plausible at least to copy the brain, as it is can be compared to a memory disk. Whatever supernatural powers unbeknownst to us, can in effect, be copying all of our "biological constructs". This is even if we use human reasoning, and it makes sense. Much less un-human reasoning.

But you've completely imagined these beings and this ability on your own. There is no evidentiary basis for believing that such beings or abilities are possible.

A computer simulation is the best example of what I am talking about. Am I saying for sure that this is a computer simulation? No. There is nothing we can know for sure. Is it possible? Yes. So does that mean all of my philosophies only pertain to a computer simulation hypothesis? No. It is an example. The best example for our human brain to grasp. The best example for YOUR brain to grasp. So think of it that way in these philosophies. If this is a computer simulation, then all of this is code. It can be changed at any time. Anything is possible. The laws of OUR universe do not pertain to what is outside of it. Understand?

I've bolded the assertions made that have no basis in reality. You do not know if it's possible for the universe to be a computer simulation. You do not know if anything is possible. You do not know if there is an "outside" to the universe.

You assume these things because the idea appeals to you, or perhaps because you simply don't understand the concepts. Either way, you're wrong.

If you cannot understand this, than this is what I mean by you not being able to go past this Earth. I am past the universe in thinking. You are thinking in earthly human terms what is possible and what is not. It is no wonder we are not on the same page!

You're past the universe in thinking? What was that about about ego-centrism?

All you're doing is making silly assumptions and playing at open-mindedness.

I have noted this before. What's your point? Why did you even bring up gravity then? My only point was that gravity is what we perceive in human terms. That is all. In any practical sense, we know gravity exists. You would get stuck at a dead end if you keep asking, "Why?" Why does gravity exist? There is no answer for it. That is because our human thinking can only go so far.

How do you not see the contradiction in saying that we are incapable of knowing everything and making an absolute claim like "there is no answer for it?" How is this beyond your ken?

What you're doing is no different than what theists do, which is inject their beliefs in the gaps in scientific understanding: "Can't explain something? That's because it's unknowable!" This is junk thinking, garbonzo.

Well I was watching a discussion with DeGrasse Tyson and Dawkins. You can find it on Youtube. There are only a few. Poetic something or another. Tyson brought up "A Bug's Life" and how for small ant-like ground creatures, gravity doesn't really matter to them. The bartender opened a "faucet" type thing and water was just like a glob of liquid that the bug just drank like that. Gravity doesn't matter as much to them. I am not saying gravity doesn't exist for them. It just doesn't matter to them. What other life forms does gravity not matter to? In this universe? Outside of this universe?

Clearly there is a difference between watching a discussion and understanding it.

And what does "outside of this universe" even mean? I suspect you have no idea.

I don't have to fear it, because there is always possibility. So like someone said, it is pushing the clock back. I'll never have to think about it because there is always the possibility until I die.

Well, given how resistant you are to evidence, and how little you actually understand of the things of which you speak, I can accept that. Even if science debunked all of your silly theories and ideas, you simply wouldn't accept the answers, so you'd be safe in your little intellectual panic room.

You are strawmanning. I never said to pretend the idea is a valid one. I said to recognize the possibility. I don't even know what my objective is about why I am debating this with you. I only ever wanted to let you know there is always a possibility about everything, but you are refuting that? ...Wtf?

Yes I am refuting that, because you couldn't possibly know if anything is possible. For the dozenth time, just because you can't disprove something doesn't mean that said thing is possible. You still have to demonstrate the possibility of something. Think of the celestial teapot: I can't disprove it, but do you really think it's possible that it exists? If you do, then you're wrong. It's that simple.

So yes, by allowing the maxim "anything is possible," you are giving equal weight to each idea. And you do in practice by completely dismissing the evidence that consciousness is dependent on the brain on the fallacious grounds that "anything is possible." So in your mind, consciousness being a consequence of the physical brain is no more valid than the idea that consciousness comes from some computer code punched into a timeless god-machine or a byproduct of ghost farts, despite the fact that the first assertion has evidence to support it while the others do not.

I've really already covered this. Improbability is only ever calculated by our own human perception and mind. There is only 1 reality, so it is really 50.50. 1 is wrong. 1 is right. We can throw probability out the window. YOU are thinking human thoughts.

This will probably come as a surprise, but...so are you!

Our math. We invented math, whether you like it or not. Math may not matter or exist outside of our universe.

Spoken like someone who doesn't know the first thing about math.

The point is that what we do is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Well, probably. But you aren't saying anything at all there. No one is refuting that.

Well, I gotta go. I'm so hungry I can eat a pig.

:shrug:

Someone doesn't know what a metaphor is....

Very big of you to admit it.

So then why can't God be proven nor disproven? It is beyond science. It is beyond what we will ever know in this lifetime.

...I don't see how this relates to the passage you quoted directly above it. And, in fact, I've already stated that proof only exists in math. But there is evidence that the being you keep referring to is a human construct, and that evidence can be found in another thread.

Also, "It is beyond science" and "It is beyond what we will ever know in this lifetime" are contradicting ideas.

Subjective.

So? There are such things as subjective truths, you know.

...So how does the universe always exist, anyway? I'm pretty sure scientists say our universe has a beginning. We don't know anything beyond our universe, which is exactly what I've been saying. You are playing both sides of the fence.

I don't think you really know what our scientists say, but you'd have to ask a cosmologist that question.

I'm making it one. =D Because I can't comprehend why a God would make a law such as time, and then say he always existed, which is incomprehensible to us. If he exists, he is an asshole.

The universe does not depend on your ability to comprehend it. I say again, timelessness is not one of the irredeemable qualities of godhood.

What are you trying to get at here? I thought your point was that such a thing as the afterlife was an idea I got from religion? I am saying it is not. It is an idea all humans have. As original as good and evil.

I'm saying your particular understanding of an afterlife comes from a very specific source. Just as your concept of a deity does. You call it "God" which is the name of the Judeo-Christian skymonster. Your very perspective is monotheistic. You don't say "gods", you say "God." That's what I'm getting at. All of your ideas are a reaction to the religions you're familiar with.

And I believe I gave you plenty of reason to consider it.

You didn't, and I've already explained why you fell short.

What don't you understand about that? There was a time before evolution was ever considered a theory. If people didn't consider new theories or think outside the box, there would not be much progress in science. Nevertheless, this is a philosophical question, not scientific! Maybe that is the thing you are missing?

What you're doing isn't thinking outside the box. You're thinking inside the insane asylum. There's no merit to your ideas. Evolutionary theory had evidence to support it, and its earliest proponents (pre-Darwin) at least had logic on their side. You don't. You have nothing but false assumptions. What's the saying about being so open-minded that your brain falls out?

You contradict yourself. If it is nonsensical, then obviously I meant something else.

Not at all. Obviously you're just talking nonsense. It's not my misunderstanding, it's your inability to form a coherent theory.

If I "just said what I mean" it would take away from my style of writing. I'm trying to get you to think outside of science or human thinking.

It's impossible to think outside of human thinking. We're human. All you're doing is thinking irrationally, which is very human.

Our perception... I don't really know how else to explain it. Think something besides our human thinking. Outside the box. Everything you know is useless in this dimension.

Again, this is a nonsensical statement. You don't even know what you mean by this.

This is what I mean by you still being stuck on Earth. It seems half of this debate is me trying to get you to think outside our scale of human thinking. You may be trying to get too technical or use science where science is unreachable. You yourself admit this. :shrug:

It's impossible to think beyond the "scale of human thinking." Perhaps if you bothered to learn that, you'd be a lot better off.

I did have a chuckle at your inability to understand, though!

Oh and we're going to be a troll now, too? Bravo, garbonzo!

 

[garbonzo]

This is a straw man. You asked for evidence that there was no afterlife, and I gave it to you. Ask any scientist, and they'd give you the same--albeit a much more comprehensive--answer.

Wow.

So... if science cannot prove nor disprove God, do you recognize the *possibility* of a God besides there being NO evidence to suggest such?

Obviously ignosticism comes into play here, but I mean any kind of definition of a God. I realize there are fallacies with certain types of Gods, but not all types, so use that. Is there a possibility?

So if you recognize the *possibility* of a God, what makes you not recognize the *possibility* of an afterlife? Obviously there are things science cannot touch, such as a God. So how can you use science to prove something not scientific?

The answer to the ultimate question of "Is there an afterlife" is obviously "I don't know," but pretending that what we do know is irrelevant is foolish.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY ALL THIS TIME!!!!!!!!

:bugeye:

I completely agree with the above quote. Now why are you saying this and at the same time trying to say there is no possibility for an afterlife at all. Period. No way. Zilch. Nada. Zero. No possibility. Because science says so?

I am not pretending we know at all. I'm saying we don't know.

I am and have always been saying that there may be a possibility. Aka, "I don't know."

Now if you think I say otherwise, erase that thought. You obviously misunderstand me. I am saying I don't know. I recognize that there may be a possibility.

I don't know what type of word games you are trying to play with me, but let this statement be my definitive statement on this matter. I obviously just agreed.

But until you can show me evidence of a some alternative, I have no reason to consider it. Just because you don't want to rule it out doesn't mean that we should give it serious consideration without evidence.

I never said we should.

But you've completely imagined these beings and this ability on your own. There is no evidentiary basis for believing that such beings or abilities are possible.

Of course not. It was only an example. There is no evidence to back it up. It is just as possible as ghost farts. I still recognize that there may be a possibility. I am not saying to give any scientific thought to this. It is nonsense. It is only an example to try and get you to realize that we don't know. Obviously you agree with me. We don't know. :shrug:

I've bolded the assertions made that have no basis in reality. You do not know if it's possible for the universe to be a computer simulation. You do not know if anything is possible. You do not know if there is an "outside" to the universe.

On what basis? Can the same be applied to a deity?

"You do not know if it's possible for a God to exist."

Maybe I am using the wrong word here? I am saying it may be possible. We don't know.

You assume these things because the idea appeals to you, or perhaps because you simply don't understand the concepts. Either way, you're wrong.

You just said, "We don't know," and now you say I am wrong about saying we don't know? WTF?

You're past the universe in thinking? What was that about about ego-centrism?

Again, a figure of speech. I am not saying I am any better a thinker than you. I believe you know a lot more than me in a lot of scientific fields. I am saying I am not thinking about what science can explain. I am saying we don't know.

You cannot say an "afterlife" is not possible 100% because science says so.

And also what I mean by "afterlife" is literally anything after our body dies. This could even mean anything scientific, like copying our brain into another body, etc. Right now that may seen supernatural, but science may be able to do this eventually. So if I keep my body frozen when I die (assuming I have enough money to do so when I do) and later in human civilization science can do this, and does it successfully, then I would in effect be given another life. So this can mean afterlife also. I am saying this is possible. (Now you are saying I cannot know what is possible and what is not? WTF?)

So again: We don't know. I am not saying ANYTHING one way or another.

All you're doing is making silly assumptions and playing at open-mindedness.

What is wrong with this? We don't know.

How do you not see the contradiction in saying that we are incapable of knowing everything and making an absolute claim like "there is no answer for it?" How is this beyond your ken?

Sorry. I do realize there error here. Let me retract and clarify. We currently can never know *definitely*.

So since science cannot prove nor disprove God. Let's say some miracles happen, and prophecies come true, etc. Some people will believe it is a God, others will believe it is a higher being. There is no way for science to say it is either one definitely. Whichever you pick may be right, or it may be wrong. But we can never know for sure 100% in this life.

What you're doing is no different than what theists do, which is inject their beliefs in the gaps in scientific understanding: "Can't explain something? That's because it's unknowable!" This is junk thinking, garbonzo.

Theists are trying to assert there is a God. I am saying we don't know, just like any Agnostic Atheist. You come across more like a Gnostic Atheist. Is this what you are?

Clearly there is a difference between watching a discussion and understanding it.

Yes. This is what I think is happening here with you and maybe me.

And what does "outside of this universe" even mean? I suspect you have no idea.

I gave you an example (remember, just an example) of a computer simulation. That would be "outside of this universe".

There is a theory, as you yourself even said, that there could be an endless supply of universes that keeps replicating itself. Another universe would be outside our universe obviously.

Well, given how resistant you are to evidence, and how little you actually understand of the things of which you speak, I can accept that. Even if science debunked all of your silly theories and ideas, you simply wouldn't accept the answers, so you'd be safe in your little intellectual panic room.

What does this even mean? Are you saying there is no room possibilities out of which science can explain, such as a deity or an afterlife? Again. All I am saying is we don't know. Science cannot prove nor disprove an afterlife!

Yes I am refuting that, because you couldn't possibly know if anything is possible. For the dozenth time, just because you can't disprove something doesn't mean that said thing is possible. You still have to demonstrate the possibility of something. Think of the celestial teapot: I can't disprove it, but do you really think it's possible that it exists? If you do, then you're wrong. It's that simple.

Wut? So... you can't disprove it, yet when I say it's possible, you say it's wrong? WTF? If you cannot disprove something, it means it is possible? How could you say a celestial teapot is not possible, 100%, zip, nada, zilch? A teapot may have been shot into space by some university experiment for all we know.

So yes, by allowing the maxim "anything is possible," you are giving equal weight to each idea. And you do in practice by completely dismissing the evidence that consciousness is dependent on the brain on the fallacious grounds that "anything is possible." So in your mind, consciousness being a consequence of the physical brain is no more valid than the idea that consciousness comes from some computer code punched into a timeless god-machine or a byproduct of ghost farts, despite the fact that the first assertion has evidence to support it while the others do not.

Why do you need evidence to support anything? I am not saying it is fact or even a hypothesis for spaghetti monster's sake! I am saying it is possible. Before there was any evidence whatsoever for evolution available to humans, someone could have thought it was possible. Someone like you would come and say, "No it's not possible because there is no evidence for it!" WTF?

This will probably come as a surprise, but...so are you!

Again, a figure of speech.

Spoken like someone who doesn't know the first thing about math.

Maybe not. I do know that it may be possible for things to go beyond our math. That is all that is needed.

Well, probably. But you aren't saying anything at all there. No one is refuting that.

Okay?

:sshrug:

It's a metaphor.

Very big of you to admit it.

Very funny. I'm laughing so hard right now. :bawl: /sarcasm

...I don't see how this relates to the passage you quoted directly above it. And, in fact, I've already stated that proof only exists in math. But there is evidence that the being you keep referring to is a human construct, and that evidence can be found in another thread.

What? Are you saying it's possible for science to say for sure there is a God or not?

Also, "It is beyond science" and "It is beyond what we will ever know in this lifetime" are contradicting ideas.

To my understanding it is impossible to ever say for sure if there is a deity or deities.

So? There are such things as subjective truths, you know.

Not in this context. As you can't read my mind.

I don't think you really know what our scientists say, but you'd have to ask a cosmologist that question.

Just research and see. Try this: http://gizmodo.com/5904714/mathematic-proof-that-the-universe-had-a-beginning

The universe does not depend on your ability to comprehend it. I say again, timelessness is not one of the irredeemable qualities of godhood.

No it doesn't depend on that. I never said that.

I said a loving deity or deities would not trick us to not comprehend something such as timelessness. I never said a deity cannot be timeless. I said if it were timeless, then he would be withholding something from us.

I'm saying your particular understanding of an afterlife comes from a very specific source. Just as your concept of a deity does. You call it "God" which is the name of the Judeo-Christian skymonster. Your very perspective is monotheistic. You don't say "gods", you say "God." That's what I'm getting at. All of your ideas are a reaction to the religions you're familiar with.

God is not the name of the Judeo-Christian skymonster. I believe that is Jesus or YHWH.

There are there Greek Gods, am I wrong?

I never even brought up Gods or a God, I think you did. It is possible for there to be 1 deity or multiple deities. So what gave you the idea my perspective is monotheistic? I sometimes say a God, but it is only an example, just like when I say "a human", it doesn't have to mean just one human, but it can mean just one human.

What the fuck is your point in bringing this up? Religions were thought of by humans. This means the idea of a God can be a thought of on your own. There was a time before the idea of a God or Gods came into existence, right? Humans then thought of the idea of a God or Gods. This shows that humans can think of the idea on their own. So I don't know what your point is.

Does this have to do with when I say afterlife? Again, when I say afterlife, I do not mean any particular afterlife particularly. Just any life after you die. Or any life after your brain dies.

You didn't, and I've already explained why you fell short.

Well I hope I was more clear this time.

What you're doing isn't thinking outside the box. You're thinking inside the insane asylum. There's no merit to your ideas. Evolutionary theory had evidence to support it, and its earliest proponents (pre-Darwin) at least had logic on their side. You don't. You have nothing but false assumptions. What's the saying about being so open-minded that your brain falls out?

Before logic, Evolution itself was only a possibility. Someone may have thought of it, but didn't think of the logic behind it.

Are you saying there is no logic behind an afterlife?

So it is not possible for science to replicate my mind?

Not at all. Obviously you're just talking nonsense. It's not my misunderstanding, it's your inability to form a coherent theory.

I'M NOT TRYING TO FORM A THEORY! You came up with that on your own, buddy. All I've ever been saying is that we don't know. You couldn't seem to understand that, trying to say it is not possible at all, so I was trying to explain that it is possible, and that we don't know.

It's impossible to think outside of human thinking. We're human. All you're doing is thinking irrationally, which is very human.

Again, a metaphor.

Again, this is a nonsensical statement. You don't even know what you mean by this.

I wasn't aware you were a mind reader.

It's impossible to think beyond the "scale of human thinking." Perhaps if you bothered to learn that, you'd be a lot better off.

Depends on what "the scale of human thinking" means. You are obviously not on my page here.

Oh and we're going to be a troll now, too? Bravo, garbonzo!

Thanks.

 

[Balerion]

Wow.

So... if science cannot prove nor disprove God, do you recognize the *possibility* of a God besides there being NO evidence to suggest such?

No, because I don't know if a god is possible. (You need to start using a lowercase "G", especially when saying "a god". That's like asking me to recognize the possibility that I was born on Mars even though there's no evidence to suggest it. I don't know if being born on Mars is possible for anyone, let alone me, so why would I say that it's possible?

Obviously ignosticism comes into play here, but I mean any kind of definition of a God. I realize there are fallacies with certain types of Gods, but not all types, so use that. Is there a possibility?

I don't know.

So if you recognize the *possibility* of a God,

So you just assumed I would answer that in the affirmative?

what makes you not recognize the *possibility* of an afterlife? Obviously there are things science cannot touch, such as a God. So how can you use science to prove something not scientific?

We don't know enough to say whether or not science is capable of answering that question, so I don't know why you keep insisting that you do know whether or not it can. What information are you privy to that the rest of us aren't?

The reason I don't recognize the possibility of an afterlife is because I don't know if it's possible. Why haven't you considered that it isn't possible? For you, it seems that the inability to disprove something inherently means that the thing is therefore possible, but that's a logical fallacy. All the inability to disprove something means is that we can't disprove something. You can't disprove that I'm an alien, but that doesn't mean it's really possible that I am.

THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN TRYING TO SAY ALL THIS TIME!!!!!!!!

No it isn't. You've been saying that we don't know if it's true or not, so we must accept that it's possible. I'm saying that we not only don't know if it's true or not, but we also don't know if it's possible or not.

I completely agree with the above quote. Now why are you saying this and at the same time trying to say there is no possibility for an afterlife at all. Period. No way. Zilch. Nada. Zero. No possibility. Because science says so?

You're twisting my words. I didn't say it wasn't possible. I said I don't know if it's possible. You ask me to recognize the possibility, and I refuse because I simply don't know if it's possible. Understand now?

I am not pretending we know at all. I'm saying we don't know.

You're saying that we don't know, but you're claiming to know everything. The fact that you've already decided what can and can't be determined by science is by definition a claim to know everything, or at least know how much "everything" consists of. You can't define boundaries without claiming to know that.

I am and have always been saying that there may be a possibility. Aka, "I don't know."

No no no, you were not saying that there "may be" a possibility, you were saying that there is a possibility.

Now if you think I say otherwise, erase that thought. You obviously misunderstand me. I am saying I don't know. I recognize that there may be a possibility.

No, I didn't misunderstand you. This is exactly what you've said:

...I said I require the possibility of it being true.

...It's only enough to believe in the possibility.

...You should recognize the possibility of these things unless there is evidence against it.

...because there is always possibility.

And so on, and so forth. You do not simply say that there may be a possibility, but that there must be a possibility.

I never said we should.

Again:

You should recognize the possibility of these things unless there is evidence against it.

You said exactly that.

Of course not. It was only an example. There is no evidence to back it up. It is just as possible as ghost farts. I still recognize that there may be a possibility. I am not saying to give any scientific thought to this. It is nonsense. It is only an example to try and get you to realize that we don't know. Obviously you agree with me. We don't know. :shrug:

The quote in bold is a contradiction. You don't know how possible ghost farts are, so how can you say these two things are equally possible? This is where you keep getting tripped up. You assume that possibility is a given.

It isn't.

On what basis? Can the same be applied to a deity?


"You do not know if it's possible for a God to exist."

Maybe I am using the wrong word here? I am saying it may be possible. We don't know.

Well, you're clearly punching above your weight here (we both are in at least some of these topics), but you seem to be confused about the concept of possibility. You say that a god is possible, I say we do not know it's possible, so the statement "It's possible for a god to exist" is incorrect. Or at the least premature.

You just said, "We don't know," and now you say I am wrong about saying we don't know? WTF?

Really, this isn't difficult, and I'm not being cryptic. You don't know if an unknown phenomenon is possible, so to say "Yes, it is possible" is an incorrect statement. I don't have any problem with the "I don't know" part, I have a problem with you assuming that anything is possible. We have no reason to assume that a god is possible, or that the afterlife is possible, and plenty of reason to believe they aren't. You can't simply dismiss those reasons on the basis of "we don't know." No one's claiming to know, only claiming that there's evidence to suggest otherwise.

Again, a figure of speech. I am not saying I am any better a thinker than you. I believe you know a lot more than me in a lot of scientific fields. I am saying I am not thinking about what science can explain. I am saying we don't know.

If you were simply saying we don't know, then you and I wouldn't be having this discussion. You're also claiming to have knowledge that you couldn't possibly have, such as defining the boundaries of scientific advancement by saying it will never answer the god question, and assuming that there are realms of existence that are beyond science's reach. You couldn't possibly know if either of these assertions are true, yet you claim they are.

You cannot say an "afterlife" is not possible 100% because science says so.

I never did. I said that we have reason to believe that it isn't possible. That's not the same thing as saying it definitively is not possible.

And also what I mean by "afterlife" is literally anything after our body dies. This could even mean anything scientific, like copying our brain into another body, etc. Right now that may seen supernatural, but science may be able to do this eventually. So if I keep my body frozen when I die (assuming I have enough money to do so when I do) and later in human civilization science can do this, and does it successfully, then I would in effect be given another life. So this can mean afterlife also. I am saying this is possible. (Now you are saying I cannot know what is possible and what is not? WTF?)

This would not be "afterlife" in the sense that we mean it now, so if you actually did mean cryogenics, you're only muddying the issue by misusing a term. Try to keep to common definitions, or let someone know when you're going off-book.

So again: We don't know. I am not saying ANYTHING one way or another.

YOu very much are saying many things one way or another. Hopefully my post has illustrated this point to you.

What is wrong with this? We don't know.

But you do claim to know. You're only pretending to be open-minded. In reality, you have already made up your mind on several unknowable items.

Sorry. I do realize there error here. Let me retract and clarify. We currently can never know *definitely*.

So since science cannot prove nor disprove God. Let's say some miracles happen, and prophecies come true, etc. Some people will believe it is a God, others will believe it is a higher being. There is no way for science to say it is either one definitely. Whichever you pick may be right, or it may be wrong. But we can never know for sure 100% in this life.

We can know 100% without proof. We know evolution is real even though there's no such thing as "proof" per se. That's the point I've been making. If you give equal weight (or indeed any weight) to absurd imaginings on the grounds that you can't disprove them, you can't get anywhere. That's why there's no reason to consider something without evidence. It's just cleaner that way.

Theists are trying to assert there is a God. I am saying we don't know, just like any Agnostic Atheist. You come across more like a Gnostic Atheist. Is this what you are?

I'm an atheist. I don't bother with qualifiers because they're unnecessary. Atheism is an intellectual position, not a philosophical one. There's evidence to suggest that the gods of the various holy texts are human invention, and there's as yet no way to know if the universe has, or even can have, a creator or creators, but the model works without one. That's the only atheism one can intellectually agree with.

I gave you an example (remember, just an example) of a computer simulation. That would be "outside of this universe".

You don't even know if there is such a thing as "outside the universe," so your example relies on a baseless assumption and therefore is not worth consideration.

There is a theory, as you yourself even said, that there could be an endless supply of universes that keeps replicating itself. Another universe would be outside our universe obviously.

No, I was talking about a chain of expansion and collapse. There would be no "outside" in that model.

What does this even mean? Are you saying there is no room possibilities out of which science can explain, such as a deity or an afterlife? Again. All I am saying is we don't know. Science cannot prove nor disprove an afterlife!

The point is that you've already demonstrated an unwillingness to accept evidence, and you demand the impossible by asking for "proof." We know evolution happens because of the overwhelming amount of evidence to support it. The same could eventually true of a deity or the afterlife, but you'd probably still demand "proof" because you don't really understand the concept.

Wut? So... you can't disprove it, yet when I say it's possible, you say it's wrong? WTF? If you cannot disprove something, it means it is possible? How could you say a celestial teapot is not possible, 100%, zip, nada, zilch? A teapot may have been shot into space by some university experiment for all we know.

Because the celestial teapot could not have traveled far enough in that time to be where the celestial teapot is purported to be in the thought experiment. Of course, you could always say 'Wormhole!" or some other nonsense, but the evidence is sufficient that the teapot does not exist. That you won't disregard the possibility is a failing on your part.

Why do you need evidence to support anything? I am not saying it is fact or even a hypothesis for spaghetti monster's sake! I am saying it is possible.

Again, you have no idea if it's possible or not.

Before there was any evidence whatsoever for evolution available to humans, someone could have thought it was possible. Someone like you would come and say, "No it's not possible because there is no evidence for it!" WTF?

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying that there being no evidence against it does not mean that it is therefore possible. Possibility is not the default position. Possibility has to be demonstrated.

Again, a figure of speech.

It's not a figure of speech. Nobody says that. It's just you obfuscating the conversation by not taking a moment to properly formulate your idea. Take the time to say it correctly or don't bother saying it at all. I'm not here to decipher your personal code.

Maybe not. I do know that it may be possible for things to go beyond our math. That is all that is needed.

I don't think you have any idea what that means. I'm confident of that.

It's a metaphor.

For what?

What? Are you saying it's possible for science to say for sure there is a God or not?

It may be. Not quite yet, but perhaps someday in the future.

To my understanding it is impossible to ever say for sure if there is a deity or deities.

As you've demonstrated, your understanding is severely lacking.

Not in this context. As you can't read my mind.

Of course there are. You made your case very poorly, that can't be disputed. And what would reading your mind have to do with this? All we're talking about here is how you presented your idea.

No it doesn't depend on that. I never said that.

Yes you did. Please stop pretending you never said things you very clearly did say. I'm not going to spend my whole night re-quoting posts I've already quoted. It's the height of intellectual dishonesty on your part, and it's childish. If you're wrong, say you're wrong. Be an adult about it.

I said a loving deity or deities would not trick us to not comprehend something such as timelessness. I never said a deity cannot be timeless. I said if it were timeless, then he would be withholding something from us.

But again, it relies on the fact that you can't comprehend timelessness. It's your shortcoming, not mine or anyone else's.

God is not the name of the Judeo-Christian skymonster. I believe that is Jesus or YHWH.

Wow, that's insanely wrong. Jesus is the hippie who was born of a virgin, Yahweh (otherwise known as Jehovah or just "God") is the name of the skymonster. Yes, there's the whole trinity thing, but God is God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, etc...

There are there Greek Gods, am I wrong?

Try again in English?

I never even brought up Gods or a God, I think you did.

Here we go again.

It is possible for there to be 1 deity or multiple deities.

How do you know it's possible?

So what gave you the idea my perspective is monotheistic? I sometimes say a God, but it is only an example, just like when I say "a human", it doesn't have to mean just one human, but it can mean just one human.

You say both God and a God. The capital G God is the god of Abraham. Perhaps this is where the confusion arises. Again, your fault.

What the fuck is your point in bringing this up? Religions were thought of by humans. This means the idea of a God can be a thought of on your own. There was a time before the idea of a God or Gods came into existence, right? Humans then thought of the idea of a God or Gods. This shows that humans can think of the idea on their own. So I don't know what your point is.

THe point is that your answer to this--"But God is possible"--is based on the tropes of the monotheism you deny, and therefore is of no more value. It's like if I were to say that the earth is really a living being named Bosephus that watches us while we sleep. You would deny this, but then say that it's possible that the planet is alive. This admission on your part is just based on my imagination, so why would you give it consideration?

Does this have to do with when I say afterlife? Again, when I say afterlife, I do not mean any particular afterlife particularly. Just any life after you die. Or any life after your brain dies.

But the afterlife as a concept is based on superstition, and has no evidentiary basis. Why do you even bother considering it? It's like saying human sacrifice might be a good idea, just not in the manner the Mayans did it. There's no good reason to assume such a thing is possible.

Well I hope I was more clear this time.

Slightly, yes.

Before logic, Evolution itself was only a possibility. Someone may have thought of it, but didn't think of the logic behind it.

There was never a "before logic," and certainly if there were, evolution wouldn't have been a concept in such an age. Before evidence of evolution had been found, there were people who considered it, and they had logic on their side, at least in broad terms. And again, you're trying to say that just because something turned out to be true that anything is possible, and that's simply not true.

Are you saying there is no logic behind an afterlife?

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Knowing that consciousness relies on the constitution of the physical brain, consciousness outside of the brain is an illogical concept.

So it is not possible for science to replicate my mind?

This is a non-sequitur. If science someday can "download" consciousness onto a synthetic system, that system would operate like a brain. What you're talking about (the afterlife) is a "floating" consciousness independent of that.

I'M NOT TRYING TO FORM A THEORY! You came up with that on your own, buddy. All I've ever been saying is that we don't know. You couldn't seem to understand that, trying to say it is not possible at all, so I was trying to explain that it is possible, and that we don't know.

So far all you've demonstrated is an inability to comprehend either of our arguments. You don't seem to understand that you're saying more than "I don't know" or that I'm not saying something isn't possible.

Again, a metaphor.

Again, for what?

Depends on what "the scale of human thinking" means. You are obviously not on my page here.

You're not even on your page here. You're just typing. You don't even seem to have a clue as to what you're talking about. I mean, you're asking me to define a phrase that you just invented.

 

[garbonzo]

I'm not even going to read that wall of text. It seems to me that you are trying to argue me over a simple fucking linguistic mistake. 1 fucking word and you take time out of your day to reply to all this? Do you realize how much time I spent on this because of this 1 word you nitpick?

It makes me wonder what kind of life YOU have if you are willing to argue of a fucking word. Why didn't you just say in the very beginning:

I think you are confusing "there is a possibility" with "there may be a possibility."

And it would have been end of discussion. WTF?

So I didn't say there may be a possibility. This is what I was trying to say nonetheless! I recognize that there may be a possibility. How is that?

I require that there may be that possibility of it being true.

How is that?

Gosh....

 

[Balerion]

I'm not even going to read that wall of text. It seems to me that you are trying to argue me over a simple fucking linguistic mistake. 1 fucking word and you take time out of your day to reply to all this? Do you realize how much time I spent on this because of this 1 word you nitpick?

It makes me wonder what kind of life YOU have if you are willing to argue of a fucking word. Why didn't you just say in the very beginning:

I think you are confusing "there is a possibility" with "there may be a possibility."

And it would have been end of discussion. WTF?

So I didn't say there may be a possibility. This is what I was trying to say nonetheless! I recognize that there may be a possibility. How is that?

I require that there may be that possibility of it being true.

How is that?

Gosh....

There is a world of difference between "is" and "may be," and you know it. You're having your little tantrum now because this is what immature people do when things don't go their way, but you know full well that what you said was wrong. It only took my three thousand words to drill it into your head, but at least now you understand. And for the record, I could care less what you're trying to say. As you've pointed out several times, I'm not a mind-reader.

Maybe this will be a lesson for you to choose your words more carefully next time. And also, the fact that you spit on my thoughtful response to your post proves to me that you're not grown up enough for these kinds of discussions, and I won't make the mistake of engaging you in them again. This also means you can stop asking me via PM to ghost write your arguments on other forums for you, as well. Instead of having a preconception and then asking others to do your arguing for you, give educating yourself a try.