Even still, probably there is no God

I figure its about a 50/50 chance based on the evidence I have on hand. Obviously the theoretical premises as laid out in any religious texts for establishing the existence of god are flawed, but there are no rock solid counter-arguements that eliminate the theoretical possibility of the existence of "god", or for that matter many "gods", either.

 A lot depends I guess on how you define "god", but even then, this discussion point is basically unprovable, and therefore moot. Anyone who argues for or against this proposition is either stupid or mad.

remind wrote:

People are trying to grasp the infinite, with finite minds. An impossible task, so injecting emotional awe, which some call faith, is done, in order to try and grasp that which is unknowable.

Indeed, physicist Fritjof Capra has gone so far as to postulate that there exist vast universes of energies of other frequencies, which not only underlie this one but in a sense are interlocked with it. In this view that dates to at least Paul Dirac, many dimensions of reality exist all around us. Capra suggests that we could be experiencing one, the physical, empirically, another, the psychic, by way of imagination, intuition, and insight. But there may be other dimensions as well which our evolved senses dont allow us to detect.

Fidel wrote:

What if evolution took place on a similar earth-like planet and produced a species of beings that are just ten thousand years more advanced than us technologically? A million years? 50 million? Would they seem like gods to us by comparison?

Given that there are estimated to be 100 billion Earth-like planets just in our galaxy (and there are billions of galaxies), it is almost a certainty that there are millions of planets with life that is unimaginably more advanced than ours.

A book called "Year Million" is a collection of essays by various scientists and other academics and sci-fi writers about what life may be like on our Earth in one million years.  One write speculates that humans, if they survive, will be immortal (with infinitely replacable organic and silicon-based parts) and have an intelligence so incomprehensibly advanced that talking to current humans would be like us trying to communicate with worms.  The book is both fascinating and disturbing.

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[b]Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!![/b]

Been on vacation for a while (fighting the air travellers environmental guilt)...  Miss reading these threads.

Quoting 2 peoples:

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Five million years is a tiny slice of time compared to how old this universe is.

...

Given that there are estimated to be 100 billion Earth-like planets just in our galaxy (and there are billions of galaxies), it is almost a certainty that there are millions of planets with life that is unimaginably more advanced than ours.

Does it seem like intelligent life is inherantly self-destructive?  Life is incredibly good at living, but beyond that...  The only consistant on Earth seems to be extinction.  If alien lifeforms...advanced alien life forms...have never reached our planet, then we're really down to 2 options.  The universe is far to vast to actually travel, or life manages to kill itself off long before that stage of developement can be reached.

Just to throw it into the discussion...I'm starting to see belief in God(s) as purpose deferral...letting some 'divine' being bring purpose to your life rather than finding your own. Accepting anothers reality and purpose is choosing not to define your own. I see it on a greater scale, watching masses take in other peoples reality...being defined by what they don't do as much as what they do. Maybe that is the intent of God worship, something to give us purpose and rules that span several of our lifetimes.  How many hardships would we have beared without the promise of heaven? Leaves me waiting for a time when humanity is ready to take responsibility for our own direction...our own purpose.  Without God, can we have a common purpose? But the masses like to view themselves as all important...all of evolution and all of creation leading up to their lives, we as the peak of life itself. It's of little wonder how such arrogance can spawn the belief that only an omniscient being is worthy of defining our purpose.

I hate that doomsday clock where it takes all of Earths history and places us in the final 7 minutes of Earths existance...just more evidence of our arrogance, that there is nothing beyond that which we've become.

Leaves me wondering on your Hamster Fidel...is your hamster arrogant enough to think that it's life is so special that only a God could direct it?

Remind:

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distracts from the fear of the unknown and accepting the reality that there is the Unknowable.

I subscribe to Holon theory on this...everything on it's own is a whole (or Holon, can use the two words interchangably).  Each whole composes new wholes and each whole is comprised of other wholes.  To understand any single Holon, one must understand all the other wholes that comprise it.  To understand the wholes that comprise it, one must understand the wholes that comprise those wholes...and so on.  Of course, you don't need to fully understand something to make use of it, it just means you must accept the wholes that comprise it without fully understanding them.  Introduces that paradox that you cannot fully understand anything and the understanding you do have based on what you have accepted.  Challenging what you've accepted extends what you understand, but only brings about new acceptances.  Personally, I find knowing that I cannot fully know anything to be of great comfort.

What, we haven't settleld this yet?

Geesh.

Funny, my position all along.  We could all save alot of zeroes and ones in computerland if we all just accepted my wisdom from the get go.

Well, in the fine details we all differ. I'd put it at 99.999, with the 9's repeated to the last decimal point of pi.

But seriously, I think the resources being spent on this bus campaign are missdirected.  A better approach would be an ongoing campaign using Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit", and allow those who might use this information as they will.

A bigger danger to orgainized religion, and it might even encourage better consuming, and better politics.

Tommy_Paine wrote:

But seriously, I think the resources being spent on this bus campaign are missdirected.  A better approach would be an ongoing campaign using Carl Sagan's "Baloney Detection Kit", and allow those who might use this information as they will.

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"There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny."

"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" 

"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality." - Carl Sagan

Well, [chuckling still] there are a lot of interesting points here, and everyone is entitled to their own beliefs.

sometimes i leave the d-link on all day too.

but this isn't really related to the thread.

regarding point #19 it strikes me that this has been an issue for people here, as i recall Doug had one thread on a related theme.

do none of you leave your home computers on all day?

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I never took that as arrogance, but the opposite - a demonstration of how ephemeral human life is in the timescale of the Earth.

I do agree with you Spector, or atleast I did.  If all of Earths time was put into the single year, I'd feel it's more likely that we're approaching midnight of March 3rd.  The Earth will continue long without us afterall...how does our doom possibly relate to the end of the timeline on all of Earth?  Associating our end (moving the clock forward a couple minutes due to 'international nuclear proliferation' or whatever the reason) as the end of a timeline on Earth is complete arrogance.  Is there any difference in believing God created everything for us VS believing in an evolutionary path for life destined to create and end in us?

I'm curious what others think on this (I've also posed the question to the brights):
Without God, can humanity have a common purpose?

Follow the white rabbit Fidel, answers will be revealed to you when you're ready for them...but I can only show you the door

I think Noise is conflating and confusing two different memes:

1. The [url=http://www.thebulletin.org/content/doomsday-clock/overview][color=medium... Clock" of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists[/u][/color][/url], which doesn't purport to represent a measurement of time, but rather "how close humanity is to catastrophic destruction - the figurative midnight", and

2. The popular-science use of a [url=http://earthnet-geonet.ca/activities/clock_e.php][color=mediumblue][u]12... clock as a graphic metaphor[/u][/color][/url] to make it easier to comprehend geologic time frames and particularly the relative span of human existence therein. This type of clock, unlike the above, [b]does[/b] purport to represent measurements of time.

I think both memes are very powerful and very useful as educational tools. I don't understand Noise's problem.

"I was under no illusions that my little guy would ever be good enough to be a circus hamster though. And I never pushed him into it."

I used to be an athiest, and still am if you define God as a person.  But Simone Weil and David Cayley(CBC Ideas) have given me a better definition of `God`that I'm comfortable with and I see the rest as metaphor, often very dangerous. I'm OK with the ads.

This is what I expected would happen.  A silly argument on the sides of busses with silly people.   Who happen to have more money for bus adds than Humanists.   The little bit of the Iron Duke in me would admonish Humanists for picking the wrong battle on the wrong ground here.

All ya gotta do to create athiests is to encourage people to ask their own questions.  Attacking people's religious beliefs head on, and out of the blue just makes them hold on tighter.

And more to it, taking people away from organized religion doesn't mean that people suddenly adopt more reasoned thinking.  In fact, I've met my share of rather rational people who go to church,  and athiests who know little or nothing about reasoned thinking.

I'm not sure I want to even prostlytize on behalf of atheism, agnosticism, or scepticism.  I don't think that works.  What needs to be done is to free people to make their own discoveries-- by first arming them with the skills they need to have this kind of fun.

You all need to watch The Invention of Lying (2009) to understand The Man In The Sky.

Exactly alan....

Boom Boom wrote:

You all need to watch The Invention of Lying (2009) to understand The Man In The Sky.

I LOVE the scene with the pizza boxes!

Actually, I thought the whole movie was quite fun.  I saw it on a plane, but watched it again with the blond guy after I got home.

I 100% agree with you, but millions of Roman Catholics and Protestants (and maybe other faiths) in this country probably outnumber us and are entitled to their opinion as well.

Indeed, Boom Boom, they are quite entitled to their opinion.

However, they are not entitled to be right.

Proof there is a God = Zero

Proof that we evolved from the earth itself = >Zero.

For those that that say there is a God(s). The onus is on them.