We haven't had a good Atheism discussion in a while... any mathematicians in the house?

[helltoupee]

@vagtitarian I guess we need another

I don't necessarily agree with the supposition that there is no free will, but it's very interesting. I think there's a good chance free will is an emergent property like consciousness.

The OP mentions Mathematics. In connection with the above, it's interesting to note Godel's incompleteness theorem tells us there are statements that are mathematically true but cannot be proven in the sense of being stated as a formal proof/algorithm.

Someone or something fires those neutrons, and it's not your conscious self.

Think about the way you hold a conversation with someone, irl. Letters, words, sentences, complete thoughts just spill out of your mouth on the fly without any conscious control.

It may be a result of learned behavior and repetition, but one thing is for sure, on some level I'm not actively controlling what's happening - so who is?

 

[hillelslovak87]

Your damn near fucking worthless. Seriously this man is sharing something and you feel the need to post shit like this. God have mercy on you, I'm done with you.

There's that christian charity. I'm sure your Jesus would be proud.

I'm not the one talking about my sky daddy whom I fear and love, you psycho.

 

[tkotom]

The poster asked if all delusions have equal value. They clearly do not.
Here, one delusion has a utility and another does not.
Many religious texts use metaphor to impart a social utility.
The Bible tells us …11"But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may reenter the camp. 12"You shall also have a place outside the camp and go out there, 13and you shall have a spade among your tools, and it shall be when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and shall turn to cover up your excrement.…
Deut. 23:14 For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.


Imagine you are a higher power that is trying to convey to a pre germ theory culture how not to spread disease.
You could try to explain to them bacteria and they would not understand. So you simply coach the terms in a metaphor and you achieve the goal rather than have a bunch of primitive people scacthing their heads about microscopic objects being able to reproduce.

Except the cultures that were reading this crap were millenia behind civilisations that already understood flushing toilets, irrigation, farming, advanced mathematics... The people reading this were nomadic desert dwellers and they were dumb as hell.

Why would a god convey anything to dumbasses when he could focus on actual smart civilisations.

 

[FascistDictator]

You wanna show off? I'd never post my dissertation here, lol.

Wrote it in under two years, it was graded summa cum laude (German system, means with highest distinction). It was awarded the faculty price for the best thesis. Eight papers were made from it, seven of those were single author papers.

Now you.

LOL that's exactly what I thought. I've been here 5 years longer than you yet you have 4x the posts.

So in other words you're just making up bullshit.

 

[Mark Hunts FIST]

Very interesting book I read on the origins of religion. It literally just started with sun gods and moved us all way to modern religion. Even things like the cross around the neck was originated when people would take their Talisman with them in order to curse their neighbor as needed.

 

[Quipling]

You wanna show off? I'd never post my dissertation here, lol.

Wrote it in under two years, it was graded summa cum laude (German system, means with highest distinction). It was awarded the faculty price for the best thesis. Eight papers were made from it, seven of those were single author papers.

Now you.

The faculty price for best thesis, huh?

 

[lecter]

You wanna show off? I'd never post my dissertation here, lol.

Wrote it in under two years, it was graded summa cum laude (German system, means with highest distinction). It was awarded the faculty price for the best thesis. Eight papers were made from it, seven of those were single author papers.

Now you.

Now you what?
Now he's supposed to post about random credentials he's not willing to provide proof for?
What exactly is your point?
If you want to stay anonymous, you can't argue with real-life achievements, obviously. I mean as long as we don't try to figure out who can write down the most impressive curriculum vitae in an online forum of course.

 

[Shoemaker]

This is why we’ll never have nice things. Atheism isn’t defined as a belief in the Big Bang and evolution.

 

[Darkballs]

Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro.

Not a single one of them committed their acts in the name of atheism, or to promote atheism, or because of some tenant of atheism. Their non-belief (although it's not appropriate to label Castro as such) was not a motivator for their bad acts. Their shitty political and economic theories were.

You're conflating organized religion with belief in a higher power. Not the same thing.

The logic still applies. You don't have to worry about a higher power watching you to have good morals.



True, but most people don't behave that way. As such, it's best to have a belief in something greater to serve as a reminder that everyone is divine in a sense and deserves to be treated with dignity, at least in principle.

I'm sorry but I'm just not going to accept atheism as a viable choice for the future. That leads to moral relativism and deconstructionist thought, which is exactly what needs to be averted if we want to avoid socialism and the destruction of the foundations of the West.[/QUOTE]

The vast majority of our incarcerated are the religious. The facts are just not on your side that belief in a higher power strengthens the social contract or makes one a better citizen. Sure, one can be religious and be a good person, but it clearly isn't necessary or advantageous.

 

[andnowweknow]

Existence is a fog of perceived reality and we're all in the same boat. Atheism is just as human as theism, it's a mechanism of comfort, albeit a more sophisticated model.

The more we learn, the more we realize how lost we are. Being agnostic is as Swiss as it gets and that's a mildly pussy stance, I know, but it makes the most sense at present.

 

[Juventud]

LOL no. Just no.

‘No religion’ tops religion question in Census
http://www.news.com.au/national/no-...s/news-story/a3b45e6b2e35df695932a83535078f51

The latest Census drop showed those ticking “no religion” rose from 22.6 per cent to 29.6 per cent — nearly double the 16 per cent in 2001.

Meanwhile, those identifying as Catholic dropped from 25.3 per cent to 22.6 per cent.

The number of Christians in total still made up 51 per cent of the population, but this is much less than the 88 per cent in 1966 and 74 per cent in 1991.

LOL that's exactly what I thought. I've been here 5 years longer than you yet you have 4x the posts.

So in other words you're just making up bullshit.

Hey TS you know when ICP said they found god in The Wraith: Shangri-La they were just trolling you right? Twiztid are better anyway.

 

[Space]

Their tyranny had as much to do with atheism as it did with their favorite flavor of ice cream. This is because there is no dogma attached to atheism except the rejection of (unwarranted) belief in a supernatural being. They were ambitious and vicious narcissists who all supported & used totalitarian ideologies to secure their power.



An odd statement following your conflation of totalitarian ideologies and atheism.



Most people don't behave that way regardless of religious/atheist belief. Religion is not an inoculation against immoral behavior. Morality clearly proceeds religion. In fact current Western morality transcends it's Judeo-Christian roots, as secular humanist values have overridden biblical values in regards to slavery, rape, universal rights for all, women's rights, gay rights, etc.

Believing doesn't "make everyone divine in a sense", it's separates the "worthy/saved" from the "condemned". This way it's easier dehumanize them (deny their dignity) and to kill them (classic us vs them). Non-belief makes us all equal in the here and now.



The good news is you don't have to, it's happening on it's own, with or without you. Also, it has nothing to do with socialism and the leftist push against the conservative ideal of personal responsibility. Again, morality is detached from belief in the supernatural. It stands on it's own.

The real danger regarding the morality question is "divine command theory". That is, whatever god commands is good ... even when it's genocide. But morality cannot be delegated or subcontracted. Personal responsibility, right? Not passing the buck like the "just following orders"/Nuremberg defense.

Good luck with your non-belief, I'm sure your future Muslim overlords will take kindly to you.

 

[Voodoo_Child906]

Again, I am not convinced there's no free will, but you put your finger on the pulse of the issue. That's what makes it such an interesting question. Should the death penalty be abolished because in essence no person could really have stopped themselves from performing their heinous acts? Certainly we have at least the perception of free will. I can complete this sentence or

I see what you did there LOL! If there is no free will then it's implied that the universe is deterministic which Heisenberg has ruled out. So I'm in the camp that free will still exists.

 

[AnGrYcRoW]

Your damn near fucking worthless. Seriously this man is sharing something and you feel the need to post shit like this. God have mercy on you, I'm done with you.

Anger management might be a good idea

 

[Lord Coke]

Except the cultures that were reading this crap were millenia behind civilisations that already understood flushing toilets, irrigation, farming, advanced mathematics... The people reading this were nomadic desert dwellers and they were dumb as hell.

Why would a god convey anything to dumbasses when he could focus on actual smart civilisations.

Assuming that is true, how is that at all relevant to the original question I was answering?

 

[Cake4Breakfast]

how far did you get in maths?

and if God doesn't exist then why do we?

Mathematics are not going to answer these questions for you either. It goes back to Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, or the teachings of Buddha, and was wrought more fully with the theory of evolution, that the human mind isn't capable of/didn't evolve to answer these types of questions, although it appears to the human mind that they are viable questions. The human mind is amazing, but it has its limitations.

 

[Cake4Breakfast]

I like Jordan Peterson, but damn, he speaks in bullshit just like Deepak Chopra.

My favorite Deepak from the end of your video, that physicist<Lmaoo>

 

[hillelslovak87]

My favorite Deepak from the end of your video, that physicist<Lmaoo>

There is a space in between every video. This space is the infinite possibility of videos. I see you in all videos, as we are connected through videos.

 

[KYS]

LOL that's exactly what I thought. I've been here 5 years longer than you yet you have 4x the posts.

So in other words you're just making up bullshit.

The faculty price for best thesis, huh?

Now you what?
Now he's supposed to post about random credentials he's not willing to provide proof for?
What exactly is your point?
If you want to stay anonymous, you can't argue with real-life achievements, obviously. I mean as long as we don't try to figure out who can write down the most impressive curriculum vitae in an online forum of course.

Come on, guys. Lighten up.

 

[tkotom]

Assuming that is true, how is that at all relevant to the original question I was answering?

I was only addressing your comment. There were much smarter civilizations around at the same timeframe of the biblical stories.