Atheists

Okie

Well said.

If I might add a comment that supports both sides of the debate.

Again i question the dichotomy, Why is it so?
There is a 3rd option. One far more rational than the 'prevailing pair'
that fights and rips at eathother for no reason.

There seems no way our percieved reality could be without direction.
There seems no way direction could be without reality.
Thus reality has allways been, and will allways be.
Our sight is too small. But we shall learn.
Reality is far far greater than any small 'big' bang. Or any intefering god.

At this dawn of a new millenium. We must start seeing. And thinking.
Shuck off this idiocy we call 'being secure within our soul devouring insecurity'

DO

Occam

 

....

 

the trap athiests and thiests alike fall into, without neccessarily putting into conciouse awairness, is imagining they have to know something for it to exist.

examined objectively this is of course an absurd assumption.

it just happens that it seldom is.

=^^=
.../\...

 

I am an atheist and I don't imagine I have to know something for it to exist.

Agnostics do not trust their own command of language, and grant meaning to 'God' in an absurd attempt to relieve themselves of the burden of belief.

 

Dejavu

Occam trusts his command of language.
And his command of reason/logic and imagination.

A:Occam does not know if the laws of our universe are a result of direction.
But he believes they are.
They are NOT the same thing. [epistemology]

Occam often uses the term agnostic in this context. Even though the
use of the term 'directon' relates not to 'a god of religion'.

B:That there are directed laws in our universe or that it has a
meaning beyond our ken, does not equate to the existance of a 'supernatural being' [ridiculous term].
[analogy]
Any more than a light water fission plant means humans are 'god's'.
Or that the cockroach living under the housing of reactor #2
should think that the god 'westinghouse' magically made the
reactor from nothing for the express purpose of creating a
domicile for the cockroach.

That the universe might have direction or purpose should
not be connected to what religion says about it.
As soon as religion started spouting absolutes like
omnipotent and concepts like hell it became absurd.

Athiesm is about the existance of a religious god.
Not about the existance of a being or race with
technology/abillity billions of years or universal lifetimes
greater than our profound ignorance.

Now if your talking about being 'agnostic' regarding a religous god.
Thats a whole different ballgame.

Our languge is lacking the correct terms.. confusion abounds.

Occam

 

I don't doubt it.

Of course they aren't. I only believe in self-direction.

A 'god' of anything is still a 'god' is it not?

But you just said you didn't know that these laws are the result of direction!

And now it only 'might' have direction and purpose? Occam, the universe does have these things, but there is nothing at all to suggest it is the product of them!

No, atheism is a position taken in relation to the idea of 'god' however it may be conceived. Atheists happen to rule the word, that we rule it out shouldn't really concern you.

lol Or the very same depending on how you play.

No, confusion abounds only in the misconception that it is our language itself that is lacking. It is missing nothing that we have given it.

 

precisely. and since we are not infallable or infinite, we cannot give it the reality that is beyond ourselves. and thus it remains, as occam has pointed out, at times less then entirely adiquite.

not to mention the inaccuracy of simantic implications engendered by cultural perspectives. and circularly vicity vercity.

=^^=
.../\...

 

Dejavu

Only if you can only define anything with greater understanding/abillity
than humanity a god.

Religion calls it 'god'. Religion is simple and transparent.

Occam calls it 'that with greater understanding than humanity' and
in general terms calls it direction..a general term for the non religious.

Tell me. What would our civilisation be to Mesopotamian Uruk in 3000BC?
We would be gods. No?
Thus reason and it's product.. technology, can be a 'god'

What would a civilisation of a billion years be to US?
Gods?

No. direction. Themnax is correct, you use semantics to support a
position against all without religion that believe we are not the beall and endall of intelligence. That any who say we may be 20 rungs down the ladder of understanding and look up...and say there is direction in that
which we are to stupid to effect. must be talking of a religious god.
Crap..
Do you think i believe the devil beast that kills virgins in the village
will be defeated by the risen christos, or his champion...LOL.
Thats what you are saying i believe.

Shall we stop arguing now that red firetrucks are better than barbie?
That the holy trinity outweighs quantum mechanics.
I think 5000 years is enough
Lets REALLY start thinking. And feeling, And Imagining.

Or, as einstein suggested, are we too stupid.

Occam

 

Nonsense. To let oneself go in language and recover ones meaning entirely requires a certain drive to conquer, a will to power, a love of oneself even in letting go. If one can only define something as a god, then to one remains that definition.

I'm sorry, what does 'religion' call a god?!

There is no direction that is not self-direction.

No.

No, they cannot.

Whose direction?

Only calumniators of reason suggest athiesm 'supports' theism, and I do not think you are such. So watch your mouth.

Occam, I consider you a friend. It is a thought, a feeling, and imagining. In the deepest wells sanctimony is silenced.

 

Dejavu

So you KNOW there is no direction.. the universe is a random event?

Occam

 

Yes I KNOW there is no direction in and of itself. What do you think a director is? What do you think a director does?

LOL

 

Dejavu

So the universe is a random event?

Occam

 

I am sure I don't know the event we call the universe well enough to adorn it with such an adjective. What I am also sure of is that I love it well enough, what is random about it can take me for all I care!

 

k

 

I've lost track of what this debate is about, but I think the term "random" could stand some clarification. Are we talking statistically, in terms of probability theory, in which each alternative has an equal chance? If so, there are a range of possible explanations for reality, the universe, us,etc., besides randomness and Yaweh. In ordinary discourse, the term "random" is often used interchangeably with "blind" (as in Dawkins' Blind Watchmaker), naturalistic, or purposeless. It's possible to have explanations of order and complexity that rely on naturalistic processes but are not strictly "random"--e.g., natural selection. I don't think anyone seriously believes humans or other living creatures, not to mention Beethoven or Einstein, were assembled by the random collision of atoms or molecules, but did they happen without purpose? Or is there some other alternative, such as variations on the Gaia hyptohesis? ("God is not the creator but the mind of the universe." Erich Jantsch, the Self-Organizing Universe, 1980,p. 308).

 

There definitely seems to be some misunderstanding with the creationists as far as random and natural selection goes. Random is not the path in the forest, Random IS the forests.

Matter, energy and life are not random; they are patters, very specific patterns pulled from random events because of their own intrinsic properties. Matter is a neutron with all of its electrons on Red 36 waiting for the roulette wheel to stop on the right spot to create an Atom. Only thing is, it can't loose because it has an infinite spins at the wheel and all the time in eternity.

Life developed the same way, over billions of years of virtually infinite spins at the wheel, not created from random so much as waiting for random to deliver the right number. This is why creationists insistently reject the sheer length of time life took to evolve because the will of God and the design of God could not possibly take 14 billion years to manifest, this does not befit an act of God.

No, because it is an act of NATURAL SELECTION!!!!

Random itself does not create anything, it is the properties of energy that selectively take, collect and utilize from the 'random' to create everything.

It is not a 'convenient' random act that we are here asking “why are we here”. It may seem surreal but who else is going to ask why, the millions of billions of trillions of quadrillions of quintillions of sextillions of septillions of octillions of nonillion of decillions of spins that FAILED to create life over the past 14 billion years?

We are the path, our DNA has been traced! Evolution and natural selection has cut through the forest to where we are now.

 

Okie

All i have ever said is that 'the laws' are not random.
The laws are what allows the universe.

Who said gravity must decline by the inverse square.
Who said planks constant is the width of an electron. 10 to the -32meters

folderol

Occam

 

Relaxx

What? Are u saying the 'thing' is the rule it exists by?

Did descartes say
I think therefore i am an because i think a reality came to being
to allow me to think.?

No

Reality existed before him. and he thought. because reality existed.

Reality existed because of laws. laws that are not random. For they exist b4 matter and energy. No matter or energy can have form without laws.

Think on this.. i have and thus i speak as i do.

Occam

 

Everything is energy, before energy there exists only singularity, not nothing but nothingness for lack of better words.

We've gone over this before; consciousness is a state of billions of extremely complex interaction between billions of complex components. Complexity is a product of time and energy, therefore consciously formed laws are an absolute impossibility.

All it takes is a few intrinsic laws for energy to develop patters maybe even just one, polarity, to start the snowball rolling. Consciousness, thought, will, design… can only come later on, much later!

 

Relaxx

Sure, is that english..lol. .lol rofl

Occam