The rational choice is to believe there’s a God

You can't prove that objective reality even exists; this could all be your solitary subjective experience. It could be completely abstract from my solitary experience.

I know that this conundrum has been floating around forever, but it remains. The only way past it, to ultimately prove the existence of an objective reality, would be to prove the existence of an intrinsic oneness to all living things, in which case my experience would definitely be your experience as well. And that would really be a combination of both subjective and objective reality, which I think is the true reality; what is subjective is also objective and experienced by all.

I think scientists make a mistake in assuming that the universe ultimately has to make sense, as if it is required to do so just because, for whatever reason, scientists need it to. It seems like a pathological need for control to me.

What if I ask "Is there a God?" You can never prove that there isn't one, so the answer can't be "No". If you have an answer to every question there is, the answer can't be "Maybe" or "I don't know". So all that's left is either "Yes" or "Could you repeat the question?"

Science still doesn't fully understand our own sun. So I'm not all that impressed with science. I think it fools a lot of people into being impressed by being intentionally abstruse, which again seems pathological to me. But the truth is that it hasn't even come close to being God. Of all the answers that exist in the universe I'd say human science has approximately, .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of them. And that is being extremely, extremely, extremely generous.

 

What you're essentially saying is : given infinite time, we will know everything. I agree and disagree.

Yes, I've heard of it... but it isn't an explaination for life, it's an explaination for evolution, how life changes or why we are in our current form. We are no closer to the answer to the question "what is lifes origin", or for that matter, the most important one, "what is life".

On a certain level I have no quibble with that, however... if you admit that time itself is an abstract concept, then all the phenomenon that rely on it to be observable (in other words, everything) are also abstract concepts.

I guess my qubbile is that science, in it's current form at least, is about as useful as giving a numerical value to how much you love or hate someone. Yes, it's useful if every person assigns a number to their feelings, but that doesn't mean that love or hate is measurable, or that that numerical value is correct, only that you can say one is bigger or smaller than the other. In essence, science is the illusion of an answered question. Same as religion. I'm not saying that either of them are wrong... at least, not all wrong.. they just make some big assumtions about the nature of the universe.

 

Belief in God is a scientific hypothesis. Human beings observe intelligence existing in heirarchies; we observe this intelligence creating order, designing the universe in heirarchies of complexity. So the hypothesis is that maybe there is an upper limit that is extremely complex.

An analogy...if you were on a planet with only sand or small rocks, you might imagine a great big rock and hypothesize the existence of a bolder somewhere. You could even choose to believe that bolders exist. Would it be wrong to believe bolders exist, lacking evidence, even though you would be right to do so?

Pretty much the same thing with God. You observe intelligent (?) lifeforms designing aspects of the universe; you hypothesize a far greater intelligence at work in designing the universe. If you have a strong hunch that this is true you believe in 'God'. So it's only a matter of how irrational it is to trust one's instincts.

 

The rational choice is to be agnostic.

 

If life was rational, we wouldn't be here.

 

So if your instincts tell you there's a God and your instincts are always right, it's rational not to trust them in this case? I would like to see a scientific experiment in which the instincts of theists were tested against the instincts of atheists.

Also I agree with the above poster. The universe doesn't always act according to fixed laws...it's natural and right to be irrational sometimes.

 

Instincts, by nature, are never always right, no matter theist or atheist.

 

yeh their function is as a shortcut to reason, efficiency of the brain's influence of environment

 

Even if your instincts were only right 60% of the time...it would still be more rational to trust them than not, wouldn't it? It's just like making a bet...it's rational to bet on the better odds. The same can go for disbelief, of course.

I guess agnosticism would be saying it's most rational not to bet at all. But then you would have to apply that to all of your instincts, wouldn't you? Why is it rational not to bet in this one instance, but okay the rest of the time?

 

This intelligence is assumed, not observed.

 

I would say that most intelligence is assumed. It's no different now than it was when we thought the world was flat.

 

Chameleon

Agreed. But ignorance is not. We as individuals and to a lesser extent as a species.
Are far less ignorant. For example occams intelligence can access online. HUGE stores of knowledge and history and he is but a small person with few resources in a big world.
Intelligence is a machine that needs information.
For 150 years it has been getting some.

And look at our world now compared to 1806.

Occam

 

And not all of known physical reality is even bound by time...

Agreed, but no more so than anything that is observed is assumed: Nothing is absolutely certain. If we can only assume that we possess intelligence we can only assume that any of our observations have any degree of accuracy.

All an observation is is an assumption you take for granted as being true. I think it's safe to say that we all take our intelligence for granted as being true: Why speak at all if you don't think you're being intelligible?

 

Google "origins of life". Here's a site I found
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lab/2948/originoflife.html

 

Whoever thinks weed is OK because it's grown from mother earth should try ingesting some DEADLY nightshade.

That is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

I don't even want to have a discussion with you until I know if you've even smoked pot.

Secondly, what evidence do you have to support that pot isn't ok? I'd love to hear this even more than the discussion going on. Comparing pot to nightshade is like comparing tuna to a lionfish.

Third, do you even realize the spectrums you've just tried to compare? EVERYTHING comes from the Earth. It doesn't just magically appear. So why are we having this discussion? Well because like I said, your sig is the most ridiculous thing I ever have heard. You are comparing plants that have nothing in common because of some bias you have against a plant. I can't understand why, maybe you just have pussy lungs or suck at smoking pot.

 

Well, ok. To start with.. the point I'm trying to make is not 'smoking weed as bad as ingesting deadly nightshade', it's just an answer to the ridiculous argument that smoking weed must be OK on the grounds that it's grown from the earth. I've heard it a hell of a lot : "man made booze, god made grass". Secondly, I don't condone drinking any more than I do smoking weed. In essence it was a statement made to make people think about their arguments for it.

Yes, I smoked weed for a long time, heavily (as in as much as a heavy smoker would smoke cigarettes) towards the end, even grew it for a while. I know the so-called benefits as much as any other drug user, if I didn't then I wouldn't have continued doing it. I wasn't into popular drug culture, to be honest I found it offensive to my intelligence, although I did take a trip (no pun intended) to Amsterdam, where I smoked, tried shrooms and philosiphers stones, and generally had a great time.

That said, and gruelling details aside, I quit because it has fucked up my life, and my fathers (who was also a smoker for a while and who got me into it) life, and has torn my family apart. I see it dragging my friends down every day too, although most of them have quit or heavily cut down now.

I also think, judging from the tone of your last message, that it's YOU that has a bias against a plant ("I have pussy lungs / suck at smoking pot"? Lol. That just wreaks of ignorance.)

I'd love to hear your arguments for it (apart from the different perspective ANY altered state of mind offers).

 

Interesting, but I still feel as if it has somewhat skipped around the subject. They talk about lifes origin on the atomic/chemical scale, but the questions that then come to mind is, what about at lower scales? Do they not matter, or is that the limit of human understanding? Is life lifeless below a certain scale, or are ALL things alive/conscious to an extent?

The idea that we understand something based on something else which we assume we understand, is what makes me question science, when it comes to biology at least.

To put it another way, we could be living in a dogs brain right now and not know it. If we knew it, the way we see life would radically change because we'd understand that consciousness doesn't imply a visible organism/life, and that consciousness/life is a system of larger/smaller consciousnesses ad infinum. It could be that organisms like birds are the consciousness of the earth, akin to the neurons in a human mind, they communicate throughout their lives and upon returning to the 'higher system' from whence they came, play a part in the thought processes of aforementioned dog.

I realise that the previous statement doesn't debunk science at all. What I'm saying is that we really do not understand the nature of life/the universe, and the only way we could possibly understand it is to twist reality into an unreality which humans can understand (kind of like psychology).

 

Then empirical science is obviously a fraud. I'm surely glad it has never done anything like create drugs to extend life, refine food production to feed starving people, or create technologies like computers.

 

Ignorance is bliss.

Either way, I still find it ridiculous that you could compare something like that in such a broad generalization of what comes from mother earth. Alcohol comes from Earth just as much as marijuana does. You think grapes can't ferment in nature? It's just been turned into a huge industry and had the same prohibition as well as ways of ruining people's lives. But to compare a recreational drug that has no real physical side effects rather emotion and mental side effects, compared to a plant that will actually kill you is obsurd. I understand that drugs can ruin people's lives, but it is not the drug that ruined the person's life, it is the person and things around you, basically peer pressure and influence. Ok, so you smoked a bunch of pot and turned into a pothead with no motivation, understandable. But when someone says, it comes from mother earth so its ok, they aren't basically saying How can you prohibit someone from taking a substance that grows naturally compared to something like Xanax or Valium which is a drug chemically made in a lab. Which has more of a physical side effect? The real drugs.

What you're basically telling me is that you get annoyed when people say "Pot is ok because it comes from Mother Earth?"....why? They are right. Marijuana has numerous medical benefits, as well as economical and commercial uses with the biproducts it produces as well as it's medicinal and psychoactive purposes. Now, Cocaine, Heroine, Alchohol, all substances that are physically addicting that is another story. Sure Cocaine and Heroine comes naturally from Earth, but like I said, everything does. These are just substances that are processed into more powerful quantities. It's not like you can just grab a coca leaf and snort it, but you could chew it, compared to a natural growing bush with a bug you roll into a paper or pipe and smoke that easily.

I think YOU have the bias because your life turned to shit because of pot and you see these other people who smoke pot who don't have the same problems and haven't gone through what you have. But, it made you a stronger person I take it? You had your last dance with Mary Jane I assume.

 

Sorry, but : 1) You missed my point. I never said I had anything against other people smoking pot, unless of course it's doing something bad to them, in which case I sympathise. I don't "hate" cannabis, I hate ignorance. 2) You just completely contradicted your first post to make yourself sound right. 3) I'm not stupid.

Tell that to someone who smokes crack or takes heroin. Yes, it may be their choice to take it, but it's not their FAULT that they become addicted. You can't just say "it's not the drug that ruined their life". If that were true then it would be safe to take, would it not?

Harder drugs, like crack/heroin, are considered bad because of their mental side effects, not just the physical. Addiction doesn't HAVE to be physical to be, as you seem to think, "less of an addiction". Why? Because mental issues can be a precursor to physical symptoms, and vice versa. They're pretty much inseperable. Personally, I don't think you have a right to judge how 'justified' an addiction is based on the little knowledge you appear to have about it. Experience it first.

Like I said, I wasn't comparing deadly nightshade and pot on the grounds of 'they are as bad as each other', I was saying the argument that they come from the earth, so it must be good, is absurd.. it's just an answer to another one of those inherently flawed 'people think cannabis is bad because it's classed as a drug, but it's never done anything bad to me'. So let me reiterate a THIRD time, because I think I said it too quietly last time.. I have NOTHING AGAINST WEED, unless it is visibly harming the people that smoke it.

Also, take a look at http://www.ukcia.org/research/can-psychosis.htm, and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4052963.stm. I realise I'm supporting science and in essence contradicting myself here, at least if you generalise my previous posts, but it's the only way to prove to you that I have a valid point. I knew about this waayy before because I was a victim of it myself.

Maybe I do, but I don't have anything against any given person smoking, or anything against arguing for OR against it. Luckily (or unluckily) I've experienced both sides first hand.

I'd like to point out that you've taken my sig waaay out of context, and perhaps you should think before you start a personal argument against me for it. You obviously smoke, enjoy smoking and DEFINE yourself by it, which is why you take it so personally when someone attacks your precious drug. I think, if that's the case, that's the worst way to be. I have no problem with people taking drugs to explore new possibilitys, etc etc, but to have your whole life revolve around a drug is very sad indeed (and yes, I used to be like that once).