Why I'm Atheist and not Agnostic

how can anyone claim to know the limits of what is or is not capable of existing? other then to lie to themselves and up and proclaim it.
we can only observe probability to varying degrees of accuracy. this is not the same thing.
the more narrowly we define the existence of something though, then we are looking at a narrower range within whatever the possibilities are,
and therefor, that propotionately much, LESS likely.

in other words, the more narrowly we define what a god is, the less likely a god, or anything else, is to accurately fit that discription.

therefor, it is not agnostics who define the god of fanatics out of existence, but fanatics themselves, who are doing so.

that athiests can be fanatics, doesn't make atheism a religion, but it does allow atheism, like anything else, capable of being fanatical.

what is the opposite of being fanatical? it is the opposite of what the ego demands.
it is accepting that we don't have to know how things are, for things to be however they 'choose' (or happen) to be.

 

Ego doesn't exactly agree with the statement "we can only observe probability to varying degrees of accuracy". But ego knows exactly where you're coming from.

The way ego see it is that we stand on the forefront of reality which is emerging right in front of our eyes, and can only observe the consistency within what has already happened.

Probability is a word we use to draw upon our knowledge of what has been consistent in the past, so that we can apply it to a future that we don't know anything about. Probability is anticipation......Hope.

An emotion that is already blinding you to the simple and obvious truth: she is going to die and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.

Ego doesn't believe reality is limited in any way by our definitions, thus anything may emerge.

Which is why ego believes creation to be an act of heroism.

 

Ego is a level of identification. The ego has no qualities of it's own but is part of the belief you have about yourself. Not only do you create ego for yourself but you also create ego for others and your ego in turn is impressed by others. The egos most profound element is it's arbitrary nature. Because it is arbitrary it can both confine and liberate depending on it''s conceptual parameters. For instance john can be a stingy asshole or john can be a generous person depending on how you behold him in relation to yourself.

 

You don't need to know the limits of possibility to understand that we live in a universe where not everything we can imagine is actually possible. God the supreme eternal transcendent conscious creator being, is the most improbable and unlikely thing the we can imagine. We watch sci-fi movies where space ships travel faster than light, not only that but the passengers are awake and experiencing this travel. This is very likely to be impossible on multiple levels but yet still more probable than the existence of this God fantasy. It is much more probable that space and time are infinite and eternal, than an infinite and eternal all mighty super consciousness. As unlikely as it is, It is still far more likely that a near identical copy of myself and this planet exists trillions of light years away in any direction. It's even likely that an infinite amount of copies of all of us exist somewhere in infinite space-time, than this God actually existing even one time in eternity.

Only things that are possible exist and repeat in infinite space-time. Again, we don't know everything that is possible but logic certainly tells us that not everything is possible. We look into the deepest darkest fields of space and find galaxies, stars and planets. we can see 26 billion light years of space and it's all basically the same; galaxies stars planets... billions and billions of galaxies and they're even all mostly the same shape. It's not likely that we're going to build a bigger telescope and find a purple cube galaxy way out there. It's not likely that we're ever going to transport a single atomic bit of information instantaneously across 100 thousand light years of space. It's not likely that we're ever going to see any evidence that consciousness transcends our physical brains or light-years of space and entropic attenuation... Some things are just not going to ever be possible, not in a googolplexian observable universes.

 

This pretty much sums up the "God is art, influence, and feelings" thread.

Your post is very brave. But very foolhardy as well.



"Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction." -- Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872.

"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." -- Admiral William Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

"The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." -- Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873.

 

^ I'll let relaxxx provide a rebuttal but those quotes except for perhaps the germ one are all way off the mark of his point.

 

They are quotes from individuals who thought they understood the possibilities that exist within eternity.

Never, is a much longer duration than was needed to disprove those quoted individuals.

 

the day something other then another human, (or a book the was written by humans) mentions anything about a god, i will consider your point.
(i do not doubt people on other worlds have invented religions, just as humans have. their own though. and nothing either of us believes or disbelieves, requires anything that exists, to conform to it)

 

Yeah, no. I don't see anything worth commenting on.

 

How will you ever discover your true self if you refuse to see worth in discovery?

 

All of those examples you gave heeh2, apparently even the germ one after verifying dates of discovery of microrganisms, have to do with tangible, physical phenomena. There is no such parallel in argument for the Personal God.

All your quotes lack foresight not evidence. The physical evidence for the personal God is what is lacking and in relaxxx's estimation, would have been discovered already if there were ever to be such a deity.

 

What you and relaxxx posit actually has a name. Its called an argument from ignorance.

You're positing a false dichotomy when in reality, a third option exists, which is that there is insufficient investigation and therefore insufficient information to prove the proposition satisfactorily to be either true or false.

In other words: The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

 

The other option is that God does not exist! Lol

Back to the drawing board

 

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Absence_of_evidence

 

I could care less about your quarrels with God.

As long as you realize there are three options, you are giving possibility it's proper due.

 

I think god is a fictional character, why would I have any quarells with it? I have as much quarells with god as I do Flying Teapots and Master Splinter.

I mean I guess technically I've had quarells with Zeus playing God of War II but I also had to take on a fictional video game Avatar.

 

I looked at the thread and don't get how my comment in any way summarizes it. My comment was meant to substantially rebut your statements on ego in post 182 which appears to me pretty much gibberish. For example, "Ego doesn't believe reality is limited in any way by our definitions, thus anything may emerge" Fact is quite the opposite is so as we organize our lives around our own verdicts and often can't imagine seeing it in any other way.


If I were to summarize your god is art, influence and feelings thread it would be to say that god is that which we invoke.

 

And breeding horses into flying unicorns for space travel...
is an "option" too.

 

You just seem to be motivated by something other than the desire for consistent philosophy.

I don't think we are disagreeing, thedope. I would actually go as far as to say that there actually is no other way to see it. We see things and make verdicts and live our lives around them. That is what it means to perceive.

But you do not know what you do not observe.

If you claim to know something without observation, it is the affirmation of something else.

I think I see more irony in this post than you do.

 

On second thought maybe I am wrong.

Since what it means to know something requires a certain amount of uncertainty, affirming something observable wouldn't be much different than trusting the word of a friend. Your self is just as capable of deception.

I don't know where this fits in all this but here it is.