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At 12/24/07 05:10 AM, Alphabit wrote:

At 12/24/07 12:11 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote: 1) The human specie and all life on this planet was created by natural selection and biogenesis. From a common ancestor yata-yata-yata

Ok.

2) There is no god or any entity of intelligence like our own or beyond our own in the universe, and that the universe was not created for a deliberate reason, no god, no intelligent design.

That is incorrect, most atheists agree that there is possibility for extraterrestrial life.

3) Life was instead created because adamant laws of our universe existed so that it could. [if you need me to go into deeper explanation of this I will]

Some athiests believe that the universe has always existsed and thus was never created.

Entity of intelligence is another word for a god, when i say, like our own, i'm talking about like the ones we consider to be a god.

Meaning there is no thinking force behind creation, period.

Most people have started an annoying argument over the validity of a random creation scenario; technically, if this IS an atheists argument against an atheist, it shouldn't be put into question.

At 12/24/07 08:17 AM, Al6200 wrote:

Your thesis needs to be clearer, but other than that, okay.

This is not a homework assignment, and the theses is using evolution to prove how [annoyingly] natural all of the horrors of the world are, given the situation... as well as disproving the importance of individual human life, and in general the importance of human life as a whole.

'Evolution is right; it also sucks'

At 12/24/07 09:48 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

This is not a homework assignment, and the theses is using evolution to prove how [annoyingly] :natural all of the horrors of the world are, given the situation... as well as disproving the importance :of individual human life, and in general the importance of human life as a whole.

Well, yeah, but just because human behavior is explained scientifically doesn't mean its meaningless. In a way, the violence and cruelty of the natural world does show how humanity is special and unique - with our language and intelligence.

'Evolution is right; it also sucks'

Yeah, its not that bad though. It does mean that most every living thing on Earth is your cousin, which is a pretty cool thought. It sort of makes you feel like you're part of something big.

At 12/24/07 12:11 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

Now... All Acts that humans deem as inhumane, Rape, Murder, War, theft, as well as music, drugs, :behaviors, cruelties, kindnesses, and the very human experience can be explained and neutralized.

Explaining does not mean neutralizing. If I can explain how a nuclear bomb works, does that make it less destructive? Does that make it less evil or terrifying?

By neutralized, i mean that it can be deemed as 'Explanatory' in other words, there is no 'evil' reason :behind a persons actions, nor is what they do evil, because what they do is ENTIRELY logical based :on the situation at the time, they are only evil for doing something which is adversed to the very :same principals that we applied to.

You probably need to define the word "logical" in this context.

What are these principles?

1) Action is, most generally, based on the causation of existence.

Okay, agreed.

It's a very fancy way of saying that Humans perform acts such to complete 2 'general' tasks.

Not true. You're not understanding evolution properly. Evolution is like a blind watchmaker. It throws things together, and prefers hacks over planned solutions. In other words, humans do a lot of things that don't make sense from an evolutionary perspective, but since evolution is just a collection of hacks, this is pretty reasonable.

- Live long

No, no, no, no, no. Evolution doesn't care if you live 20 years or 80 years, it only cares about how many kids you produce.

Live long is a whole idea that all specie, particularly humans, will do things to enhance their :interests in society, the interest being the acquisition of entities which I call 'wealth' designed either :to prolong our lives, or make our lives more enjoyable.

We do this because our brains were designed for this behavior. At the time, it increased our reproductive fitness. But that doesn't mean our brains today necessarily increase reproductive fitness.

Now, there is no written law that states this, just like evolution is an unwritten law, or any scientific :law for that matter. However, it only makes sense that humans would naturally want to enhance their :interests in society

This is actually untrue. Evolution often does select for behavior that reduces an invididuals reproductive fitness but improves said fitness for an overall population.

:but we MUST always use evolution to explain this, if humans were not interested in enhancing their :interests, they would have died out a long time ago, not having the interests to become 'the best at :survival'.

Sort of. Evolution gave us intelligence for a reason, but that doesn't mean human intelligence is based exclusivly on reproduction. Largely, its based on things that are connected to reproduction.

Take birth control. Since we developed brains gradually, the earliest brains were quite simple. Obviously, they were no where near understanding concepts like reproduction, fitness, or evolution. So our brains were just programmed for sexual behavior and pleasure. The same remains true today.

This obviously worked, since today

So humans don't necessarily act to gain, in many cases we act in order to do something that is loosely tied to an evolutionary gain.

:As a result, humans surviving today exist for the purpose of prolonging their life spans because :those with the mental capacity to increase their life spans are more apt to survive. Or you could look :at it another way, finding ways to keep ourselves alive have prolonged our lifespan as a result of :various changes in the human experience. And humans are naturally attracted to stimulus, which can :be achieved by the acquisition of wealth.

In evolution, living long doesn't matter beyond your reproductive life cycle. So why do humans try to live longer? Simple. Evolution prefers simplicity and hacks over planned systems. Evolution had no way of seeing how intelligent humans would become, so it just gave animals the instinctive and emotional aversion to death. Today, we carry that aversion with us, even in situations where it does not improve our reproductive fitness (i.e. postmetopausual women)

Wealth is a whole term for things such as Better foods, Games, More comfortable living, etc, all of these are registered to the brain as 'good' because they are a positive stimulus. We will naturally find ways to do this for ourselves and for our Causational allies or individuals who we vest trust in for the enhancement of our own interests in turn for theirs. [Like an interspecies symbiotic relationship] Humans will naturally desire this 'wealth' and more wealth when existing wealth becomes 'the norm' or 'depleted in value' Similar to the effects of Vicodin. The need for stimulus may be coupled with natural evolutionary needs to be happy, since happiness on the general has shown medically to improve an individual's physical status. [Laughter reduces risks of heart attacks, we've all heard it, and it constantly makes us believe that there is a link between the Holistic human view of a link between what is good for humanity, and what makes us better at the acquisition of wealth at the same time] Even atheists are guilty of this thinking...

- Prosper

Prosper simply means that it is our natural desire to ensure that our genes get passed onto :offspring, this is done by reproduction. If we didn't want to do this, we [as a specie] would be extinct.

We don't have a natural desire to reproduce. Rather, we have lust, and love. Traits that allow us to reproduce, but humans don't actually care that much about reproducing. Look at birth control. Evolution gave us lust so we'd have kids, but now that we're more advanced, we've been able to get lust without constant child-bearing.

The reason for this is clear: primitive animal brains couldn't understand things like reproduction, so we were given simple traits like lust, that allowed us to reproduce effectively.

Many of you are thinking "Well that's ridiculous, human kind slaughters itself constantly, how can :our behaviors of 'evil' ever POSSIBLY be the reason we exist. And I will answer all of those :questions. As we use these theses to explain the nature of the human existence.

Well, evil is a property of the human experience. You perceive something as evil because your brain has been designed to look at it that way. Evil, right and wrong, don't exist outside of a biological frame of reference. So I'd be forced to say that evolution is not evil.

Prosperity, as well as a breakdown in the intentions of evolution compared to our growth rate, is the :ultimate fuel source for what people today describe as 'the generation of sexually crazed teenagers'. :I'll go into more detail about this later.

Well, yeah. You do realize though that "sexually crazed teenagers" is a preposterous myth. Rape and extreme sexual crimes go back thousands of years.

At 12/24/07 01:05 PM, Al6200 wrote:

At 12/24/07 12:11 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

1) It makes it less terrifying as a reality, but will not change the perspective.
2) evolution doesn't necessarily care if you feel lust over the need to have childeren, not knowing about contraceptives; it commits to the same purpose.
3) Uniqueness doesn't change the meaning of human existence.

At 12/24/07 02:57 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: 3) Uniqueness doesn't change the meaning of human existence.

Why are people so convinced that our existence is meaningful?

At 12/24/07 08:14 AM, SlithVampir wrote:

At 12/24/07 04:52 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:
HOW MANY FUCKING TIMES DO I NEED TO SAY THIS.

A million more.

There's a reason that I'm done with religion topics.

People don't WANT to listen to reason, therefore, they will not.

Sense doesn't matter when you get told something is correct since birth, then a few radicals with the right idea try to tell you it's not.

Yeah I'm done with this thing too, religion is a good thing and thats that, I will still keep my my own beliefs and I can only hope that anyone here who doesn't, will change their minds when the time is right, because seeing is sometimes believing.

At 12/24/07 05:39 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: Yeah I'm done with this thing too, religion is a good thing and thats that, I will still keep my my own beliefs and I can only hope that anyone here who doesn't, will change their minds when the time is right, because seeing is sometimes believing.

And sometimes, whether you know it or not, you only look for what you want to believe so that you can believe it.

At 12/24/07 06:56 AM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: Leme ask u a question, how the fuck did religion ever start?

Man invented it.

Since cavemen times is a far back as I've heard,the earth had already been created when the race of Man came, how did we get here?

We evolved.

We couldn't ahve evolved from the apes cuz they're still here.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH IDIOT. We evolved from the ancestors of apes. The apes we evolved from are completely different apes than the ones we evolved from.

Give me one good reason why anyone should evengive notice to your opinion, there is no evidence that God doesnot exist, that everyone knows.

Okay let's believe in the flying spaghetti monster because you can't disprove it either.

Read the reply chocolte-penguin wrote above.

He's an idiot. So no.

At 12/24/07 05:39 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: Yeah I'm done with this thing too, religion is a good thing and thats that,

Tell that to the countless innocent thousands who were tortured, bured alive and killed during the inquisition. Tell that to the thousands and thousands who die each day as a result of Islamic wars.

I will still keep my my own beliefs and I can only hope that anyone here who doesn't, will change their minds when the time is right, because seeing is sometimes believing.

But that's the problem, we can't see god.

At 12/24/07 07:18 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 12/24/07 05:39 PM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: Yeah I'm done with this thing too, religion is a good thing and thats that,

Tell that to the countless innocent thousands who were tortured, bured alive and killed during the inquisition. Tell that to the thousands and thousands who die each day as a result of Islamic wars.

I'm willing to let bygones be bygones, and even let the Islamic wars slide as fundamentalist pigs that aren't actually representative for their religion.

What I do have a huge problem with is that religion causes homophobia and is heavily responsible for the spreading of AIDS certain areas, because of their constant campaigns against condoms.
That's not even fundamentalism, just being misguided.

And then there's the creationist morons that feel the need to not only hamper the progress of science by opposing stem cell research for example, but that actually want to destroy established scientific theory just because it doesn't fit in their worldview.

Religion has done good in the past, and it does some good now as well, but I believe the bad of organized religion far outweighs the good. Humanism and philosophy covers pretty much everything that it has to offer, without all the negative "side effects".

Did any of you people read?

don't need to argue these things, since this is intended for an atheist audience who should NATURALLY already accept these things; if not, you are not a true atheist such as me [Hypothetically] in the case of ITA [infallible theses of atheism]. Discussing the validity of any of these will not, and MUST not be for discussion purposes, but can be in other discussions, once again, if you are an atheist; I need not explain them.

I'll say it twice....

don't need to argue these things, since this is intended for an atheist audience who should NATURALLY already accept these things; if not, you are not a true atheist such as me [Hypothetically] in the case of ITA [infallible theses of atheism]. Discussing the validity of any of these will not, and MUST not be for discussion purposes, but can be in other discussions, once again, if you are an atheist; I need not explain them.

And a third time, just for good luck.

don't need to argue these things, since this is intended for an atheist audience who should NATURALLY already accept these things; if not, you are not a true atheist such as me [Hypothetically] in the case of ITA [infallible theses of atheism]. Discussing the validity of any of these will not, and MUST not be for discussion purposes, but can be in other discussions, once again, if you are an atheist; I need not explain them.

Atheists have CONSTANTLY put up 'lets asume god exists' threads... And people seemed to respect it. This is a 'let asume that god doesn't exist' thread.

Take your god does not does too argument somewhere else.

People would envision a universe based on a biological model, something is created by something else, it lives and then it dies. But you can't apply philosophy to the truth of the world when truth has been accepted as that which is taken by means of empirical study.

chocolate-penguin
May I say, you don't know what you are talking about. First of all, eveloution is something changing to it's given envirnment. We do it now, just not as noticeable. Throw 2 americans who live in San Francisco, and throw them in Alaska. And have to 2 people from Alaska stay there. The people from Alaska won't notice the cold as much, why. Because they lived there, theie parents lived there,ect. This therefor prooves over time, staying in a certain envirnment, you will be acustumed to it. And don't say, it's because they started in Alaska in the beginning, because then you are just mononic.

At 12/24/07 06:45 AM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote:

At 12/24/07 06:40 AM, Earfetish wrote:

At 12/24/07 06:37 AM, Earfetish wrote: I haaate when religious people pretend that they have the most likely explanation and atheists are missing out on something. Like being raised religious.

I don't want to sound like a high-and-mighty dick, but tbh, atheists have evidence-based beliefs, letting discoveries and science speak for themselves, and the religious are presuppositional, re-interpreting or dismissing scientific discoveries to conform to their rigid worldview.

There really is no evidence that there isn't a God out there, so until your head explodes and your soul is ripped from your body from seeing God, I will remain happy in my belief of God, who is an awsome guy, he spared my brother from a drowning accident 8)

There's no evidence that there isn't a colony of aquatic seven armed gorillas at the bottom of the sea. But ya know what? I would bet everything I have or will ever own in my lifetime that when we get there the hairy sea monkeys wont be. What happened to your brother is luck, more so it was chance. Do you think god is sitting behind people at a slot machine deciding if they win or lose? Think of a deck of cards, I can shuffle them(split evenly in 2,1 card ontop 1 card), deal them out, and someone is going to have a winning hand. You can believe god had a part in choosing the winner, but logically I can go back and trace where every card has been, no cards are going to magically switch one for another, so the only way god could have been involved in the outcome would be if he could see the future. Since god was so kind as to grant us free will and all there is no way he could accurately see the future and effect past events to get the outcome he wants. With that in mind, we have no free will, or he has no way of helping our outcome in life without predicting the future, which is impossible. So since these two concepts can'te play nice together and since free will and miracles are considered a big deal to christianity and 99% of the religions out there I can only conclude that they are bullshit. If you don't get it I'll take the blame, someone more eloquent than myself probably does and can explain better.

At 12/25/07 02:05 AM, SEXY-FETUS wrote: There's no evidence that there isn't a colony of aquatic seven armed gorillas at the bottom of the sea. But ya know what? I would bet everything I have or will ever own in my lifetime that when we get there the hairy sea monkeys wont be. What happened to your brother is luck, more so it was chance. Do you think god is sitting behind people at a slot machine deciding if they win or lose? Think of a deck of cards, I can shuffle them(split evenly in 2,1 card ontop 1 card), deal them out, and someone is going to have a winning hand. You can believe god had a part in choosing the winner, but logically I can go back and trace where every card has been, no cards are going to magically switch one for another, so the only way god could have been involved in the outcome would be if he could see the future. Since god was so kind as to grant us free will and all there is no way he could accurately see the future and effect past events to get the outcome he wants. With that in mind, we have no free will, or he has no way of helping our outcome in life without predicting the future, which is impossible. So since these two concepts can'te play nice together and since free will and miracles are considered a big deal to christianity and 99% of the religions out there I can only conclude that they are bullshit. If you don't get it I'll take the blame, someone more eloquent than myself probably does and can explain better.

You're arguing blackjack as a means to "God doesn't interfere in human affairs. That's a terrible argument.

On a human level. My parents didn't interfere when my friends and I played a board game. That doesn't mean they played no part in my life. Only that helping me win board games was not only NOT part of their plan for me, but that helping me win everything I played was AGAINST their plan to raise me.

On a human level, I can guess (usually pretty well) as to what actions my friends will make. Simply on the fact that I know them on a human level and are able to predict most of the things they'll do....does this negate free will? Of course not. So if a human can guess what they'll do...why can't God.
Moreover, why can't God intervene once he knows what's happening to create a better outcome.

For the first time I can ever remember, I think your argument is bad.

There's no evidence God intervenes. Medical science has intervened a lot more than God. During the bubonic plague, people were shocked that the deeply devout seemed just as likely to get plague as everyone else.

For people saying 'where do protons come from', exactly how much research have you done to answer this question? Ever read a book about it?

At 12/25/07 02:52 AM, WolvenBear wrote:

You're arguing blackjack as a means to "God doesn't interfere in human affairs. That's a terrible argument.

On a human level. My parents didn't interfere when my friends and I played a board game. That doesn't mean they played no part in my life. Only that helping me win board games was not only NOT part of their plan for me, but that helping me win everything I played was AGAINST their plan to raise me.

On a human level, I can guess (usually pretty well) as to what actions my friends will make. Simply on the fact that I know them on a human level and are able to predict most of the things they'll do....does this negate free will? Of course not. So if a human can guess what they'll do...why can't God.
Moreover, why can't God intervene once he knows what's happening to create a better outcome.

For the first time I can ever remember, I think your argument is bad.

God doesn't intervene because he wants us as pure as he can get us, not knowing where we came from is a good way to set apart believers and non believers.
If you wanted a bird to nest in a bird house, you would create a place for them to stay, with food and anything they would need, there's no way to make them do so. God gave us a planet full of resouces hoping that we would believe in him because of all the wondrous things there are. He cannot make us believe in him so it is more of a personal thing, do you feel the need to know that you are cared for if at any time you are hated or mistreated by everyone else, do you feel the need to be loved when no one will love you, God has his arms wide open for all who wish to be with him when they die.
Any smart person would know that if you want to create something good you have to start from scratch and that is what God did, he gives us hints that he is around but like a certain band I like called Insane clown posse, you need to be smart enough to recognize the real message of things.
That band has all kinds of music talking about killing people and dead bodies, but only a few can look past that to see the hidden messages, as one particular album called the wraith I think, it explains that they follow God, and they're not sorry if they tricked anyone into being evil like people.

The test of shadows I call it, it is up to you to recognize what is what for what it really is and choose the right path when you come across it.

At 12/25/07 06:27 AM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: God doesn't intervene because he wants us as pure as he can get us, not knowing where we came from is a good way to set apart believers and non believers.

That contradicts SO MANY people of religion who believes everything that happens is part of god's plan.
If god supposedly doesn't intervene, then what's the point of prayer.

God gave us a planet full of resouces hoping that we would believe in him because of all the wondrous things there are.

HAHA. 80+% of the earth's surface is uninhabitable for one thing. Without civilization, food is very very scare and surviving was pretty much, well, miraculous. This world was definitely not designed with humans in mind.

He cannot make us believe in him so it is more of a personal thing, do you feel the need to know that you are cared for if at any time you are hated or mistreated by everyone else, do you feel the need to be loved when no one will love you, God has his arms wide open for all who wish to be with him when they die.

Wtf? Again, just because something is comforting, that does not in any way make it more likely to be true.

Any smart person would know that if you want to create something good you have to start from scratch and that is what God did, he gives us hints that he is around

What hints? without the bible, a book written by men, your religion would not exist.

but like a certain band I like called Insane clown posse, you need to be smart enough to recognize the real message of things.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAH STOP PLZ LOLOLOLOL ISP WTF ROFL LMAOLMAO

That band has all kinds of music talking about killing people and dead bodies, but only a few can look past that to see the hidden messages, as one particular album called the wraith I think, it explains that they follow God, and they're not sorry if they tricked anyone into being evil like people.

HAHAH STFU YOU FUCKING MORON. There lyrics, despite being ABOLUTELY FUCKING SHIT, are violent and horrible, and I would be ashamed to say that they are the same religion as me.

The test of shadows I call it, it is up to you to recognize what is what for what it really is and choose the right path when you come across it.

Wow, lemme guess, the "right path" is god, and how are we supposed to 'come across' it? The bible? Because no, just no.

SadisticMonkey, if you even believed half of what comes out of that little brain of yours, you wouldn't have to comment on my replies with such ignorance and hate.

Just by that you tell me that you want somone to agree with you so you won't feel lonely about your crazy ass ideas, just let whatever happened to you go and just live life, whatever the fuck it is that made you doubt God I'm sure it is nothing more than you being a complete cry baby.

So SadMonkey, tell me why you do not believe in God, tell me when you first stopped believing if you ever did, or tell me what your parents were like assuming they are atheist too.

Your belief = Die and be nothing
Our belief = Die, go to heaven, and/or live on to other lives.

Which one seems better to believe is a good way to start.

What if your religion is wrong? What if the Muslims or Hindus are right?
Because worshipping other Gods is a HUGE sin, so you're gonna be in for a shit load of suffering if you're wrong.

And you can't disprove the other religions.

At 12/25/07 07:02 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: What if your religion is wrong? What if the Muslims or Hindus are right?
Because worshipping other Gods is a HUGE sin, so you're gonna be in for a shit load of suffering if you're wrong.

And you can't disprove the other religions.

I don't care, I have a mixture of religious beliefs.
And if I do go to hell, at least I will not be there forever, if you haven't read the bible or have any common sense, Hell is a place to hold the wicked immortal souls, you think physical pain is hard, try and think how spiritual pain would be, maybe if I did go I would learn to do the right things, and aplogize for my sins.

Either way, its taking responsibility for your actions that is the point, if you are too afraid to be a man and take a punishment, then you probably are not worthy.

Shaggytheclown17, remember when I said you were a dick? I stand by my words even more, now.

Your arguments are shit, and it looks like your main desire is to insult atheists, perhaps because it's shocking to you that someone could honestly disagree.

At 12/25/07 05:43 AM, Earfetish wrote: There's no evidence God intervenes. Medical science has intervened a lot more than God. During the bubonic plague, people were shocked that the deeply devout seemed just as likely to get plague as everyone else.

Just like to point out Jews died less then the rest of the population, mainly because we listened to the commandments about burying dead as quickly as possible, and some other laws involving sanitation, like wasenhing your hands before a meal, or immersing yourself in water everyso often, not eating an animal unless it was slaughtered. So I guess you can argue God did intervene in this instance.

Of course this just led to more persecution since people thought we were causing the plague...

At 12/25/07 10:42 AM, therealsylvos wrote: Of course this just led to more persecution since people thought we were causing the plague...

yeah, well if that's true and God intervened to save the Jews, then that means Judaism is the correct religion and God lacks foresight

so even if that's true about the Jews my statement applies to Christians and Muslims moreso

At 12/25/07 06:27 AM, Shaggytheclown17 wrote: God doesn't intervene because he wants us as pure as he can get us, not knowing where we came from is a good way to set apart believers and non believers.

Well, that wasn't what I was saying at all.Sexy Fetus was saying that "because BlackJack has to have a winner, I have proved God doesn't interfere in the matters of mortals.

But it proved no such thing.

And God can work in much more imperceptable ways.

At 12/25/07 06:43 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote: If god supposedly doesn't intervene, then what's the point of prayer.

Thanksgiving for one.
And God isn't a magic 8 ball. "Dear God, I would really like a stranger to put 100,000 dollars in my mailbox tonight" tends to get no response.

Listen to the song "Unanswered Prayers" by (I believe) George Strait.

HAHA. 80+% of the earth's surface is uninhabitable for one thing. Without civilization, food is very very scare and surviving was pretty much, well, miraculous. This world was definitely not designed with humans in mind.

That's dogmatic belief on your part. Actually, the galaxy is very fined tuned to Earth having life. It is at just the right distance from the sun, has just the right amount of backround radiation, etc.

Wtf? Again, just because something is comforting, that does not in any way make it more likely to be true.

It doesn't mean it's less likely to be true either.

What hints? without the bible, a book written by men, your religion would not exist.

Yet it was written by men who at least BELIEVED they experienced the divine. And it has enough staying power to be around after 2 millenia, whereas many other religions that pre-dated it have fallen to the wayside.

HAHAH STFU YOU FUCKING MORON. There lyrics, despite being ABOLUTELY FUCKING SHIT, are violent and horrible, and I would be ashamed to say that they are the same religion as me.

They do actually have a few songs where they express religious sentiments (I used to listen to them). Their other songs are so ridiculously cartoony that they're not realistic.

Wow, lemme guess, the "right path" is god, and how are we supposed to 'come across' it? The bible? Because no, just no.

Your arguments are worse than his.

At 12/25/07 02:09 PM, WolvenBear wrote: It doesn't mean it's less likely to be true either

it totally does.

if one was to look at religion through a sociological or psychological perspective, one could infer that it was made, by man, to fulfill certain desires.

do you have any reason to believe in your particular religion?

do you have any evidence for your particular religion, as opposed to the others?

At 12/25/07 02:09 PM, WolvenBear wrote:

HAHA. 80+% of the earth's surface is uninhabitable for one thing. Without civilization, food is very very scare and surviving was pretty much, well, miraculous. This world was definitely not designed with humans in mind.

That's dogmatic belief on your part. Actually, the galaxy is very fined tuned to Earth having life. It is at just the right distance from the sun, has just the right amount of backround radiation, etc.

Guess what: If the Earth wasn't finely tuned to having life, we wouldn't be around here contemplating why Earth was so perfect for life. It's like a cosmic lottery, the odds of one specific person winning the jackpot are incredibly small, but eventually SOMEONE (or some planet) has to win it.

And sure, then you can think there must be some God out there that must have wanted you to win, but the simple truth is that if you didn't win, you wouldn't be asking yourself the question "why did I win?".

Yet it was written by men who at least BELIEVED they experienced the divine. And it has enough staying power to be around after 2 millenia, whereas many other religions that pre-dated it have fallen to the wayside.

Which means that it is a very "contagious" religion. A religion that would teach that you have to pray to the one true God, but that only the guy who prays the most can go to Heaven and the others go to Hell, wouldn't be spread at all. Staying power has nothing to do with how true it is, only with how much it encourages believers to spread the religion.

Wow, lemme guess, the "right path" is god, and how are we supposed to 'come across' it? The bible? Because no, just no.

Your arguments are worse than his.

Lol. Yeah, arguments like " living forever is better than just dying, so it's the better thing to believe" own the living shit out of Earfetish's.

You stupid theists completely ruined my thread....

Like i said before...

"If there is a god... Then..." You've seen those threads, like the one about whether or not god would make a fake partner for someone in heaven.

Imagine if someone said; Your argument is mute, because i say....

That completely destroys the purpose of the thread.

Don't change the facts to put certain elements in this favor, if you're an atheist you don't have a problem with this, if you are a theist then pretend for a second that god doesn't exist, and explain to me using my infallible thesis of atheism that humanities evil deeds are in fact not logical, normal, or standard.

We don't need people responding to Shaggy's own personal beliefs on religion based on how he see's his PGIS' [power gods in the sky] , and then throwing them on the entirety of all theist believers. Just ignore him, and respond to ME.

[Because i know you can, because i know you're right, and i am wrong, so to speak]

At 12/24/07 12:11 AM, SmilezRoyale wrote:
Now... All Acts that humans deem as inhumane, Rape, Murder, War, theft, as well as music, drugs, behaviors, cruelties, kindnesses, and the very human experience can be explained and neutralized.

By neutralized, i mean that it can be deemed as 'Explanatory' in other words, there is no 'evil' reason behind a persons actions, nor is what they do evil, because what they do is ENTIRELY logical based on the situation at the time, they are only evil for doing something which is adversed to the very same principals that we applied to.

Well, no, we can't actually explain everything. I assume that there is a naturalistic reason for everything, but there are many things that are still unknown to us. Most of all human behaviour, which is at times as illogical as it can get. We are guided by emotions as well as reason.

As for what is considered evil, that depends on the society. It's a very complex question that many philosophers have debated long and hard on. Most people have some sort of internal moral compass that is a result of our upbringing I guess. But good and evil are social constructs, and rarely is a single action clearly good or clearly evil.

So I doubt you can classify evil simply as acting adverse to a few principles, but I'll read and see.

What are these principles?

1) Action is, most generally, based on the causation of existence.

It's a very fancy way of saying that Humans perform acts such to complete 2 'general' tasks.

- Live long

Live long is a whole idea that all specie, particularly humans, will do things to enhance their interests in society, the interest being the acquisition of entities which I call 'wealth' designed either to prolong our lives, or make our lives more enjoyable.

I guess that goes for many, but humans are known to perform altriustic deeds as well, and more common are people that voluntarily try to make this a better world, for a whole lot of different reasons. For example firemen that make it their job to risk their lives in order to help people.

Now, there is no written law that states this, just like evolution is an unwritten law, or any scientific law for that matter. However, it only makes sense that humans would naturally want to enhance their interests in society, but we MUST always use evolution to explain this, if humans were not interested in enhancing their interests, they would have died out a long time ago, not having the interests to become 'the best at survival'.

Well sure, humans as a species enhance their own interests by improving society, and this can be done in a huge number of ways. But to say that the human behaviour is geared to individually increase the lifespan is a huge stretch.

As a result, humans surviving today exist for the purpose of prolonging their life spans because those with the mental capacity to increase their life spans are more apt to survive. Or you could look at it another way, finding ways to keep ourselves alive have prolonged our lifespan as a result of various changes in the human experience. And humans are naturally attracted to stimulus, which can be achieved by the acquisition of wealth.

If you are speaking as a species, then yes I'm inclined to agree. Humans as a species strive to survive, among other things by staying alive individually, procreating, and protecting the offspring.

Wealth is a whole term for things such as Better foods, Games, More comfortable living, etc, all of these are registered to the brain as 'good' because they are a positive stimulus. We will naturally find ways to do this for ourselves and for our Causational allies or individuals who we vest trust in for the enhancement of our own interests in turn for theirs. [Like an interspecies symbiotic relationship]

Interspecies? If you mean intraspecies, then sure. But it's a lot broader than that, we are a social animal. In general, society as a collective protects itself. By collaborating with other humans, we are able to individually achieve much greater things.

Humans will naturally desire this 'wealth' and more wealth when existing wealth becomes 'the norm' or 'depleted in value' Similar to the effects of Vicodin. The need for stimulus may be coupled with natural evolutionary needs to be happy, since happiness on the general has shown medically to improve an individual's physical status. [Laughter reduces risks of heart attacks, we've all heard it, and it constantly makes us believe that there is a link between the Holistic human view of a link between what is good for humanity, and what makes us better at the acquisition of wealth at the same time] Even atheists are guilty of this thinking...

Sure, we individually strive to be happy.

- Prosper

Prosper simply means that it is our natural desire to ensure that our genes get passed onto offspring, this is done by reproduction. If we didn't want to do this, we [as a specie] would be extinct. Prosperity is the ULTIMATE engine for humanities desire to ensure that their physical traits, as well as their entire culture is passed on and becomes dominant, this is done to the benefit of the possibility of the human race continuing onward, and is the reason why humans are alive and we didn't die out to be placed by another sentient specie that WOULD HAVE wanted to prosper. Prosperity is also the cause for human hostility to individuals who do not share their attributes, or at least, the reason why they are less inclined to forge causational allies.

What do you mean with "causational allies"?

Now that we understand that it is a human survival tendency to commit to these tasks, we need to know why they do them; and I will say this one last time. Human kind has since the beginning of time, looked at human reason backwards. We have always asked and told ourselves #1 "why do we exist?" the answer being "We exist to change our behaviors" such as religious movements of peace through adherence to a divine law code, or maybe something more tangible such as a government code,

Heh, there are no definite answers to big questions like "why do we exist".

Which are, as most atheists believe, unrealistic [and this is true for the time being] But no one has ever thought about the fact that "Why do we exist." The answer being, "We exist because our behaviors have permitted it to be that way."

Well if you interpret the question as "why haven't we died out yet", then yes. There are many reasons, but generally it is because our "design" is succesful, we are biologically, socially and in almost every way adapted to continuing survival. But the same goes for cockroaches for example.

Many of you are thinking "Well that's ridiculous, human kind slaughters itself constantly, how can our behaviors of 'evil' ever POSSIBLY be the reason we exist. And I will answer all of those questions. As we use these theses to explain the nature of the human existence.

I don't see where any of the behaviours you have named are intrinsically evil.

Prosperity, as well as a breakdown in the intentions of evolution compared to our growth rate, is the ultimate fuel source for what people today describe as 'the generation of sexually crazed teenagers'. I'll go into more detail about this later.

A breakdown in the intentions of evolution? You'll definitely have to go into more detail about this.

Debate me.

Well, don't know where you are trying to go with this, what's your main point?

SmilezRoyale, this post is for you bud. I like what you say, it sounds wonderful, and trust me I used to believe it myself. I believe that simple bacteria DID indeed evolve into modern complex human life. But the problem that i seem to run into is that natural selection is basically a really long drawn out guessing game. According to the theories about evolution, all of the DNA that would make up future humans was contained in the much simpler life, so basically life spent millions and millions of years turning on and off genes until it came up with what is the best thing it's got so far, and that is the modern human. But there's one problem, where did these genes come from? Sure Abiogenesis maybe have turned non-life into life, but where did these genes come from? Where did life get all of the DNA to create the complex tissues that we have; I mean, it knows how to create brains, which are computers infinitely more powerful than any we can create. And you're telling me that life, which spontaniously appeared constructed the most powerful computer in the known universe with no more ingredients than primordial soup and time? That seems to be a big jump to me.