Happy commercial non-denominational autumn holiday

[Dan]

My god believes that this thread will never make the post count of the infamous "Is there a God" thread of past Silvertail fame.

I wish that had never been deleted

 

[Rex]

Religious beliefs in God.
Religious beliefs in no God.

Lot of similarity really.

One might think so, but then so is belief in unicorns and belief in no unicorns... I'm not saying God doesn't exist, I'm just choosing not to believe that he/she does. I think there's a considerable difference there. That difference being that the latter is not a religious belief at all, just a lack there of.

There is far more intelligence in the universe than our conceptual minds can comprehend or replicate? Yes? If you defined that creative intelligence "God" - whatever form it takes - would you dispute the existence of God?

Is a better question what's your meaning of God, rather than does God exist Y/N?

Or if God is what you worship, and you worship "what is", then is God "what is"?

PS Whilst Thor, Chris Hemsworth, is a pretty awesome Aussie guy and stood up really well alongside Anthony Hopkins and Natalie Portman, I wouldn't quite call him God just yet. Maybe after the Avengers and Thor 2.

 

[Matabele]

Religious beliefs in God.
Religious beliefs in no God.

Lot of similarity really.

You require blind faith to be an atheist, and informed one to be religious.

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My god believes that this thread will never make the post count of the infamous "Is there a God" thread of past Silvertail fame.

I wish that had never been deleted

Yeah, that was my Watmough moment.

 

[Dan]

You are correct Rex. The place most atheists go wrong is in blanket saying there is no god when what they mean is they don't believe in the christian god and moreso creationism.

However your definition of god is probably a bit skewed. I think for the sake of debate here let's define an atheist as someone who does not believe in a god as a creator, and person in charge of our destiny and fate. I think that is really the cusp of the main debate for those who have read as far as the god delusion but no further.

I think to definitively say there is no god is as foolish and unscientific as saying there is a god. It's far better and I think more intelligent to say I just don't know but I will find out really most people would be agnostic rather than true atheists.

If I ask you is there a god and you say yes I will ask you how you know, your answer will be in my view based on faith and not fact.

If you say no and I ask why, you will say that there is no real evidence and will be based on lack of evidence

In my view neither shows definitive proof.

An agnostic believes that we just don't know, we don't think there is enough evidence either way and really that is the truth. Science will seek and one day find the definitive answer but not in my lifetime

 

[Rex]

Why is at all Athiests can never tell me who created the first energy source, or is there an energy source out there that is infinite?

I'm betting SCIENCE will tell you all energy has a start point.

There is a God....be sure of that. I just hope you don't sentence your kids by enforcing their non-belief. Imagine off loading an eternal sentence for YOUR beliefs on them !!

A fixed and absolute belief in God (or in non-existence of God, or in anything else) suggests the believer is no longer open to any new information or perspectives. That he is closed minded.

 

[Dan]

Exactly and in my view both are decidedly unscientific. Which is why I think the bickering and topic of science in the debate is oft quite amusing

 

[codewana]

Looking forward to continuing this discussion when I'm back at my laptop. Til then, I'll be on the hill watching the boys play in God's Country... Whoops!

 

[Dan]

I look forward to many a quote from the god delusion.

I doubt you will raise matas into more of a debate.

I envy those with 100% faith in either side it would be nice to have that certainty and one less thing to worry about in my life

 

[Matabele]

I look forward to many a quote from the god delusion.

Lucky Kindle has come along, stops the need to pulp fiction such as the God Delusion, though it is leading to a shortage of available toilet paper.

 

[Rex]

Science will seek and one day find the definitive answer but not in my lifetime

Science won't definitively answer the God question. Most people's belief (or non-belief) in God is based on faith (blind intellectual belief), not on current scientific evidence or theories. Science is the modern-day religion, with blind belief in this modern-day diety.

Science is limited to mental concepts, fabrications, simplifications, abstractions, mere theories. And limited testing to see if the current theory seems to fit. Like buying a street directory and then claiming you know a city or country. Very useful - to an extent. Enables computers, plasmas and hectic fast-paced lives. And more suicides and depression and environmental destruction and social and mental problems than ever before. There will always be far more depth to the universe than any scientific theory can encapsulate. We can only scratch the surface with our tiny little intellects.

Science said the world was flat and the earth the centre of the universe. It said that time and space were absolute, separate and fixed and obeyed Newtonian physics in all circumstances. That physical matter really exists. Proven. Pfft.

If we're trying to understand "God" through the intellect, we've missed the point. Our primitive intellect is the greatest barrier to seeing and experiencing what spiritual teachers like Jesus were trying to say. Any truth in what they say gets distorted as soon as a religion is organised. The main problems with Christianity are not with what Jesus taught, but with current accepted interpretations and dogmas about what it all means.

 

[Dan]

Rex I disagree completely. Science and ultimately technology will one day answer that question definitively. It may take a million years but we will answer it one way or the other. Whether that changes opinions is another answer.

There is nothing that one day will not have an answer I have enough faith in the human race and am amazed enough daily by the intelligent of humans to know that. Our curiosity is only limited by our ability to imagine answers, with each advance that ability expands

 

[Matabele]

Dan, heard about M Theory? An extension to your favourite String theory.

 

[codewana]

Since 'The God Delusion' seems to get a few mentions here, I feel obliged to suggest that before people judge Dawkins on that book (which I found to be boring and irrelevant) one book that should be read by every person is 'The Selfish Gene'. Probably the most beautiful and mind boggling books I've ever read!

On a side note, my karma ran over your dogma.

 

[Dan]

Dan, heard about M Theory? An extension to your favourite String theory.

Has that got something to do with big macs and cheeseburgers?

 

[ManlyBacker]

Good to see this stuff back again!

Dan, heard about M Theory? An extension to your favourite String theory.

Supposedly based on many dualities in string, gravitational and membrane theories. To me one great proof of human mental capabilities is the conceptualisation of multiple dimensions, and in this case going to eleven. I must admit I struggle around the 5th and 6th dimensions

I don't subscribe to the Selfish gene theory of Dawkins. I like a lot of what he has written but he is a bigotted bullying prat and is all too clever in trying to carve a 'scientific' (and in his case incredibly unlikely) niche out for himself.

And Rex, I cant agree that there is "more intelligence in the universe than our conceptual minds can comprehend or replicate". It may be true and it could also be false.

Dan covers my position very well (as usual). But I doubt we will ever have an answer for everything. As each answer comes in it always throws open another question.

 

[Matabele]

Dan covers my position very well (as usual). But I doubt we will ever have an answer for everything. As each answer comes in it always throws open another question.

Unless of course much was revealed by the fellow Dan suggested wasn't fictional.

 

[Dan]

Or by the guy standing on the corner of George street with an a-frame sign....the end is nigh

 

[Rex]

I admire your optimism that our small little intellects can understand all that there is to understand about the universe. One tiny barrier is that everything we can perceive and conceive depends on innumerable other things, and another is that everything is always changing. We come along and look at a few variables, notice some patterns, and then make predictions based on those patterns - based on our concepts about those patterns.

An 11 dimensional universe? - an 11 dimensional array difficult to understand? Not really. You just need to chart 11 variables against changes occurring. You can even do that to a reasonable extent in a spreadsheet or database. Businesses do it all the time - product code, price, quantity, advertising expenses, salesman identity, area code, GST code, account number, past sales periods 1 to 12, budgets periods 1 to 12 - there's plenty of dimensions without even trying.

Scientists choose length, breadth, height and time as the first four "real" dimensions. On the assumption that they are all totally independent of each other. And real, with independent existence. Only trouble is that space and time are not independent variables - as Einstein showed. They vary with each other. They do not even exist independently. Space-time is curved.

And are they even real? Of course you say? Time is real, there's past, present and future. I was on this site yesterday, am now, and will be tomorrow - but have a look and you'll see it is always now. 10 seconds later, check again and it is still now. No-one has ever lived in the past and no-one will ever live in the future. Because time is a concept and we are more than concept machines. We conceptualise time based on abstractions - memory and projection of memory. Just like we conceptualise in dreams. But it is always now, for everyone and always. That's eternity. Eternal life? Available to experience now if you can look. If you can look past thoughts, concepts, beliefs.

Space is real? I am here and that is there. But have a look and you'll see that you're always here. Always.

Our minds receive inputs and we infer the concepts of space and time. They are mental concepts. Constructions. Fabrications. Useful for practical purposes, but mere inferences all the same.

Once you can see past the unreality of concepts then you can understand all. But it is not an intellectual understanding. Not conceptual.

 

[codewana]

this thread

 

[Dan]

Wow Rex what a mother load of assumptions you have there.

Given enough time we will learn the answer to any question. That's what science is. 200 even 100 years ago things we do everyday would seem impossible to those of the time.

What is they say? Given enough time a hundred monkeys with typewriters will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

That is fairly true applied to science. You are thinking in the now but as we advance our knowledge our ability to answer and ask more questions deepens given enough time be it millions or billions or a googolplex of years we will answer the questions in these topics given the human race lives that long there will be a day that we will have all the answers available to us.