NationStates Jolt Archive

There is no God. Accept it, dudes. No Allah, no Buddha, none of the others ... humans create their own gods and fixate their own beliefs on them. Of course the world wasn't created in seven days! Of course creationism isn't a science? How stupid would anybody have to be to believe that?
I'll put your weighty arguments along with the rest of the stuff i spread around my roses.
Why when some one asks a question about the ramifications of particular theory/belief (for that is all evolution is) do psudo scientists then use it as an opportunity to bash religion?
Evidence for one thoery does not disprove another, it supports one. If it disproves a theory it does not support another. I'm sick of try to argue logic with numpties who post patronising ill thought out turds like the comment above.

If all things are God, then nothing is more or less holy than anything else, and the individual human itself is as equally embued with Godhead as a twig or a snail or a cloud or a graphics card. If all things are holy and divine, then there becomes nothing for a sentient believer to specifically focus upon and place themselves in relation to which is more or less valid than anything else.
I disagree with Spinoza, then. The sentient believer always has an individualized relationship with the world around him, and a conscious means to express his individual god-hood. No two people find the same things to focus on, but everyone *does* find things to focus on.

On the plus side, Spinoza's ideas really emphasize the uselessness of a more materalistic-literalistic view of this. Validity is a human-assigned property.

As I say, I can't really explain this too well. Parallel example: if all things were blue, and never changed their shade, then the quality blue would lose its meaning.
Thanks :-)

There is no God. Accept it, dudes. No Allah, no Buddha, none of the others ... humans create their own gods and fixate their own beliefs on them. Of course the world wasn't created in seven days! Of course creationism isn't a science? How stupid would anybody have to be to believe that?
You are contradicting yourself. First you say there is no God, then you say humans make them. Which is it?

I'll put your weighty arguments along with the rest of the stuff i spread around my roses.
Why when some one asks a question about the ramifications of particular theory/belief (for that is all evolution is) do psudo scientists then use it as an opportunity to bash religion?
Evidence for one thoery does not disprove another, it supports one. If it disproves a theory it does not support another. I'm sick of try to argue logic with numpties who post patronising ill thought out turds like the comment above.

It works in the opposite direction too. Religious zealots bashing evolutionists.

As has been said, speciation has zip to do with any potential meaning of life. A lack of supernatural origin is another matter.

As for meaning, there is none. We get to make it ourselves. It's a wonderful freedom.

The meaning I've decided for my life at the moment is as follows:

1) To make those people I deeply care about truly happy as often as humanly possible. It's a lot of work and time and money, since one's in another state, and one's in another country, but seeing those smiles and hearing those happy voices is intoxicating.

2) To bring genre fiction out of being frowned upon by the schools. When something like the Great Gatsby is required reading, but Lord of the Rings isn't even considered literature by many, something is wrong.

3) To change the world for the better. I hope to leave a mark on this world, that will leave people happier in the long run. I'm hoping to do that through a philosophical text. I probably won't live long enough to see whether or not it works, but that's not important.

4) To have my name, or something I wrote, be considered near the end of humanity. I want one of the last people, before they die, to ponder a quote of mine, or remember my existance in some way. Shakespeare, Wilde, Poe, and so on, will almost certainly have this honor. I want it as well. A purely selfish and romantic thing, but it's an interesting drive to make that much of an impact on the world.

I have enough meaning in my life as it is. Being distantly related to bacteria hardly interferes.

As has been said, speciation has zip to do with any potential meaning of life. A lack of supernatural origin is another matter.

As for meaning, there is none. We get to make it ourselves. It's a wonderful freedom.
You're contradicting yourself. First you say there is no meaning, then you say we make it. Which is it?

;)

I'm assuming by the wink you knew I meant 'inherent'. Just like I can have "no vase", take a bunch of clay, and make a vase. But the vase wasn't there before I made it.

Of course, the meaning itself is wholly in my head. My existance doesn't have a meaning in and of itself, I simply chose to elect a specific set of goals which I term as being my meaning.

I'm assuming by the wink you knew I meant 'inherent'. Just like I can have "no vase", take a bunch of clay, and make a vase. But the vase wasn't there before I made it.

Of course, the meaning itself is wholly in my head. My existance doesn't have a meaning in and of itself, I simply chose to elect a specific set of goals which I term as being my meaning.
Well, by the wink I meant that I emulated a posting I made about three up. :)

I understood that you meant the objective meaning, yes. But what I'm reaching towards with this (and the previous) post is that you seem to hold that the objective meaning has more reality than the one "wholly in your head", that it is "inherent" of existence; whereas, I would argue that the subjective meaning is the one that is inherent of human existence, and therefore the one that really counts. It's a point of view thing.

I'm on the fence about the whole creation thing. My only pro-creation thought that always pops into my head is emotions. If I love my fiance in a creationist world, I'm feeling a gift that was given to me by a creator. In an evolution world, I'm only feeling a strange chemical imbalance when I'm near her.

I'm on the fence about the whole creation thing. My only pro-creation thought that always pops into my head is emotions. If I love my fiance in a creationist world, I'm feeling a gift that was given to me by a creator. In an evolution world, I'm only feeling a strange chemical imbalance when I'm near her.
That's an interesting view. When I feel things, I usually don't think of or question where the feelings come from, though I might occasionally look for what circumstances prompted them to appear.

Ramifications of evolution? We ARE the ramifications of evolution, along with every other living being on this planet. There's still a lot of unanswered questions, and who knows if the top-level question can even be answered? The only problem I have with Atheisism is that it is also a belief system. Why choose to believe that there is a God, or conversely believe there isn't one. The problem with trying to work out whether there is or isn't a God is that by defination God could rig the results of any scientific enquiry ;-) That's why I'm agnostic, call it sitting on the fence if you like, but I think this is the only question that sitting on the fence can be justified. Everything else is a subset of this top-level 'problem' and can therefore be proven or disproven given the required knowledge and tools.

How about this? Forget about asking about the meaning of LIFE.. how about asking about the meaning of the universe? As far as we can gather there are two components to the universe, matter and energy. There is much evidence also for 'dark matter', but no-one knows what this might be. So let's expand our horizons and concentrate on the big picture. I'm sure this will be much more fullfulling than endless debates about creation vs evolution. I imagine most people are not really happy(when they really think hard) with either view:

1) God created the universe
2) The universe popped in to existence.

so.. it all gets a bit confusing and messy when those questions are thought about in depth... enjoy ;-)

Actually, matter and energy are the same thing. Everything I've seen shows that that existance is just different vibrations. It's like saying water, ice, and steam are different, or that hot and cold are different. It's all the same stuff, just in different concentrations and vibrations.

Also: Option 3: The universe has always existed in some form. Existance is some deranged mobius strip. It's the only thing I've ever figured out that can explain, outside of actual, true, real chaos existing, how to solve the cause and effect problem. Note: This works much better for vibrations than it does for obscenely sentient and powerful creatures with humanoid forms and vengeful natures that can alter reality at whim always existing.

Besides, happiness isn't that important. What is, is. Your being sad about it doesn't change it. Puppies die. Your not liking that doesn't make them not die.

Besides that, I -am- happy about how things work. I see it as this: Recently, on the cosmic scale, I was made of the 'dust' of STARS. I was a fricking chunk of sun. Then my components traveled about in space, until they converged on this one hunk of star dust, Earth. Then, my ancestral components had to go through abiogenesis to become myriad organisms, which themselves merged, fighting off billions of years of predation. Then my ancestral components evolved there way slowly in to humanity, and, devouring the star dust that was me, my mother gave birth to me. And now, to this day, I consume what was once star dust, and am wholly a thing of stars and energy, and the result of billions upon billions of years of struggle and space travel.

Sorta beats "And god, being bored and lonely, made clay, and molded it, then made out with it and gave it life, then made it horny, and ripped a chunk out of it so he could watch them and their offspring hump."

I happen to agree, though didn't want to post theories. It seems to make sense that the energy/matter system has always existed and that the two are intrinsically linked. Even if this is true it would still be nice to know why such a system exists and this is what results in what I think are three states of human mind:

1) Religion - answers all questions
2) Athiesism - doesn't answer any questions but discounts some.
3) Agnotism - doesn't discount anything.

Unfortunately I fall into the third category, even that's a belief system in a way. I think over time the always existing universe could help us get rid of these thoughts, no longer looking for cause and effect could clear things up a lot ;-)

If someone believes in sceince and not god then they must believe in the ultimate entropic death of the universe, and if they believe this then how could they create meaning in there life?

Final food for thought:

The best religious leaders, philosophists and physicists don't have a CLUE about why the universe EXISTS. They never have in human history and do not now. The sooner we can all come to terms with that the better. That doesn't mean we're all going to go mad and do things we know are wrong, it just means we'll accept that we don't have the answers and more importantly we don't need the answers. Humans extending cause and effect in their minds has brought about this problem, but if we can just rewind a bit and accept that we don't currently know the ultimate cause and effect than we'll all be a lot better off.

1) There's no evidence that there's a why.

2) Entropy is one of the least understood concepts I've ever seen, especially when people think it means chaos. Remember, there are particles that, so far as we can tell with our current detection methods, pop in and out of existance at seemingly random. This sort of thing keeps the dynamism going. Add in things like gravity, which creates forms by cramming everything together, and all of the other effects, there's just no stopping activity on a large scale. Something's always going to be moving. It's all just a wave form.

If someone believes in sceince and not god then they must believe in the ultimate entropic death of the universe, and if they believe this then how could they create meaning in there life?

Since when does science prove an end to the universe? Entropy has been observed, but does that have anything to do with the universe or life? Even if there is a big crunch does that mean your life doesn't have meaning? Doesn't seem so, but that's just opinion like everything else posted here.

Since when does science prove an end to the universe? Entropy has been observed, but does that have anything to do with the universe or life? Even if there is a big crunch does that mean your life doesn't have meaning? Doesn't seem so, but that's just opinion like everything else posted here.
Well, I'm not a physicist, but it does seem to me that the tendency to maximum entropy, a concept devised for closed gaseous systems in which gravity is a relatively minor force, may simply have been too far extrapolated when applied to the universe, which is not entirely gaseous, and in which gravity is not a minor force. By 'tendency to maximum entropy', I mean, the tendency to maximum disorder in a system, not the other stuff.

I disagree with Spinoza, then. The sentient believer always has an individualized relationship with the world around him, and a conscious means to express his individual god-hood. No two people find the same things to focus on, but everyone *does* find things to focus on.



So what you seem to be saying is that what is of primary importance is not that the individual stands in an absolute relationship to the absolute (ie. God), but rather that the individual stands in an absolute relation to something?

I'm on the fence about the whole creation thing. My only pro-creation thought that always pops into my head is emotions. If I love my fiance in a creationist world, I'm feeling a gift that was given to me by a creator. In an evolution world, I'm only feeling a strange chemical imbalance when I'm near her.

In my opinion that strange chemical imbalance is more amazing for having been the result of accidents of history, rather than design, not less.

I happen to agree, though didn't want to post theories. It seems to make sense that the energy/matter system has always existed and that the two are intrinsically linked. Even if this is true it would still be nice to know why such a system exists and this is what results in what I think are three states of human mind:

1) Religion - answers all questions
2) Athiesism - doesn't answer any questions but discounts some.
3) Agnotism - doesn't discount anything.

Unfortunately I fall into the third category, even that's a belief system in a way. I think over time the always existing universe could help us get rid of these thoughts, no longer looking for cause and effect could clear things up a lot ;-)


1) Religion - answers all questions by saying God did it.
2) Athiesism - answers all questions by saying God didn't do it
3) Agnotism - noticies things happening, asks all the questions.

Putting aside the evolution/creation debate for now and purely examining the philosophical side of things, I want to ask evolutionists if they have considered the moral concequences behind their beliefs. Logicaly if life is an acident and it could have happened anywhere anytime anyway etc, then it has no meaning and no purpose yes. I mean if it was a random convergence of amino acids and other various chemicals then what are we doing here now? Have you considered that if life is an acident then we are all but acidents and life has little if no meaning if there is no reason for us being here beyond chance? I think that this is the problem many people have with your perspecive.

There seems to be this falacy that Evolution and Creationism has to be mutually exclusive.

Just because the process of Evolution and the creation of the Universe are very strong theories, and barring a radical event leading to a refutation of them are most likely fact, doesn't mean that these events weren't by design.

I have a strong faith in the scientific process. Because of that, I tend to ask questions that oddly enogh, most scientists try not to. For instance, I tend to wonder at the likelihood of the accidental creation of a sentient form of life capable of wondering if it is an accident or not.

Also, if the Universe started as a single partical of superdense matter exploding with unimaginable force, I tend to wonder where that matter came from, and why it didn't destroy itself like Black Holes do.

*shrug* But then again, I'm the crazy one. :)

If someone believes in sceince and not god then they must believe in the ultimate entropic death of the universe, and if they believe this then how could they create meaning in there life?

It is unlikely the ultimate entropic death of the universe will occur in their lifetime. :D

Putting aside the evolution/creation debate for now and purely examining the philosophical side of things, I want to ask evolutionists if they have considered the moral concequences behind their beliefs. Logicaly if life is an acident and it could have happened anywhere anytime anyway etc, then it has no meaning and no purpose yes. I mean if it was a random convergence of amino acids and other various chemicals then what are we doing here now? Have you considered that if life is an acident then we are all but acidents and life has little if no meaning if there is no reason for us being here beyond chance? I think that this is the problem many people have with your perspecive.

I've always thought life to be random and meaningless. That doesn't mean that I don't have purpose. My purpose is to continue existing and improve the wealth and prestige of my family. No mystical being perched in the clouds handed me that purpose, I decided it for myself. Beyond that, however, I have no purpose other than to breath, eat and procreate.

There seems to be this falacy that Evolution and Creationism has to be mutually exclusive.

They do.

However, evolution and *creation* are not, nor is the idea that evolution was simply the workings of God's plan.

They do.

However, evolution and *creation* are not, nor is the idea that evolution was simply the workings of God's plan.

:confused:

The existance of God and evolution are seperate questions:

God exists and created the universe without evolution.
God exists and created the universe including evolution.
God does not exist and neither does evolution.
God does not exist and evolution occurs.


Evolution is just a theory. Sure there is a whole lot of evidence that correlates with the theory, but it may be wrong.

And as to the existance of God...

The existance of God and evolution are seperate questions:

Which is exactly what I said.

Evolution is just a theory. Sure there is a whole lot of evidence that correlates with the theory, but it may be wrong.

And the strength of science is that, if we find evidence that it is wrong, the theory changes.

*Everything* in science is just a theory, even gravity. However, some theories have so much evidence backing them up that it seems pretty silly to claim something else.

And as to the existance of God...

Can be neither proven nor disproven by scientific means, as it is an axiomatic statement. Therefore those that pose a false dichotomy between science and religion don't know anything about science and know very little about religion.

Putting aside the evolution/creation debate for now and purely examining the philosophical side of things, I want to ask evolutionists if they have considered the moral concequences behind their beliefs. Logicaly if life is an acident and it could have happened anywhere anytime anyway etc, then it has no meaning and no purpose yes. I mean if it was a random convergence of amino acids and other various chemicals then what are we doing here now? Have you considered that if life is an acident then we are all but acidents and life has little if no meaning if there is no reason for us being here beyond chance? I think that this is the problem many people have with your perspecive.

Well yes. That says it all. Quite true. Life has no meaning but what our confused brains make of it. Good summary chap.

It sounds to me like you want to discredit a proven scientific theory simply because it does not coincide with your beliefs.

I think it's pretty obvious that we humans are probably 100% wrong on everything relating to religion and science. ;)

youre all thinking way too hard. especially since as humans, we dont have the capacity to understand the means of our creation. dont take the bible too literally. the old testiment is mostly fairy tales to help us understand ourselves better, and the new testament is mostly just showing us how to be better people and make the most out of our lives. oh, and the big bang and evolution - maybe god created that? . think about it... or dont :sniper: :mp5: :gundge:

I'm on the fence about the whole creation thing. My only pro-creation thought that always pops into my head is emotions. If I love my fiance in a creationist world, I'm feeling a gift that was given to me by a creator. In an evolution world, I'm only feeling a strange chemical imbalance when I'm near her.

Not exactly. Both examples are identical in that certain pysical or chemical reactions in the brain produce certain conscious effects (whether you believe in God or not the chemical cause is still there). The question is whether you believe such consciousness to be in some way identical to said physical or chemical reactions. Just because you don't believe in God doesn't mean you have to do so. You can not believe in God, or a soul, but still claim that consciousness is something distinct from, but has a causal relationship with, pysical or chemical reactions.

If someone believes in sceince and not god then they must believe in the ultimate entropic death of the universe, and if they believe this then how could they create meaning in there life?

I fail to see why the ultimate ending of the universe should negate meaning in my life any more than the fact that it's likely that some time soon a snail will die in the Amazon. Both are monumental events from one perspective (I'm pretty sure the snail won't be happy about it) that have absolutely no bearing on my life from my perspective.

Mentholyptus seems to have escaped Nihilism. I'd say that's all it takes, for him.

Unless you're talking about all of humanity, which is a different story. In order for humanity to pass the test, all of us would have to escape nihilism.

What's so bad about nihilism, anyway?

Greetings

In my opinion and in others there is a meaning to life.

Neo who ever said humanity or any other natural living thing is an accident is wrong. Dead wrong!

In the Universe things are constantly moving and evolving. It was inevitable that life would spring from what was going in the universe and on earth. It just so happens that early humans were smart enough to get together and starts to figure things out. It would have happened eventually if it didn't happen then.

Now for the meaning of human life it is my opinion that there isn't just on meaning. With every life there is a meaning to life. All of them are different, unique, and rely on each other. The reason why there has to be many reasons is because you just can't have one meaning as you can't just can't one life. It all comes together. This is the greatest thing of all. Humanity is the best the universe can do. Even with all our mistakes and defects we are still the greatest thing. Don't you think it is great that something that is lifeless can create something it isn't? You can't even compare a living thing to the universe. But the one thing that humanity has in common with the universe and in all living things is that we can all create.

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

-Forest Gump (A.K.A. Tom Hanks)

From the original point: "... Then life has no meaning."

Most evolutionists realize this. Out of this one sentence, we get such things as voluntary abortion, when there is absolutely no need, as the baby will not kill the mother, we also get fetal stem cell research, society inherits murderers and killers "convinced" that they're simply ridding the world of a useless species that destroys everything it lays hands on.

Many these days, and in the past, turned away from the idea of a Supreme Being, God, Diety, whathaveyou. Many claim, "Look what has been done in the name of religion. Jihad, Crusades; How can you tell me religion is good?"

Well, in every single religion, not cult, the said religion makes provisions for those who pretend to follow that faith and its teachings, yet are really liars and "wolves in sheep's clothing". So, remember, those evil people doing evil things in the name of religion and God may not really have been doing so.

You also must wonder, legends are not made up. They come from a root, something in the past which was so distorted, changed over time that it became just that: a legend. All ancient cultures, and every single civilization up until Darwin's "Origin of the Species", worshiped some God or gods, Diety or dieties, etc. One must wonder: Why would every single people ever to live on the planet believe in a God? Do you think the very first civilizations made them up? Of course not! Why would they put forth a radical idea such as a higher being when humans are so self-aggrandizing and egotistical?

Or, is there really some Higher Being? Did He present Himself to man, create them, and the Human race passed this knowledge on from generation to generation, and as they spread across the globe, founding new civilizations, they had distant memories of stories of gods, and re-created them?

If life has no purpose, then why do atheists scream out against chopping down trees, bombing civilians, and so forth? If life has no meaning, of what purpose are morality and laws, the very foundations of our society? If life had no meaning, would we honor those who died so that we could speculate here about evolution or creation?

If life had no meaning, fetuses would not be considered human, but simply an object, having no life, no intrinsic value, to be killed at will by its life-giver. If life had no meaning, why spend money developing medicines, vaccines, so that the rich, wealthy atheists can live longer?

The moral God-worshipping people of the world have long kept it together. With such values as life, liberty, rights, would be unkown. Would the Founding Fathers have created a Bill of Rights for meaningless, worthless creatures? Would America, Britian, Canada,and many other nations have stood up to stop the atrocities of the Nazis, Communists, or whatever other threat came to bear?

I return to the issue of God. Evolutionists claim that the solar system is nearly five billion years old. There are a few undeniable pieces of evidence that show that the solar system cannot be any older than 100,000 to 200,000 years.

1. Saturn's moon, Io: Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Each day it belches up a large fraction (can't remember the figures) of its mass. The Cassinni Probe calculated the mass of Io, and with these calculations, atheistic scientists determined that at that rate, Io would have frozen, nearly all of its mass ejected from volcanoes, billions of years ago, assuming, of course, the solar sytem was 5 billion years old.

2. Our moon, Luna: Before Niel Armstrong had set foot on the moon, scientists back here at home worried that he and the moon lander would be swallowed up by feet of moon dust built up over the billions of years of its existance. However, when Mr. Armstrong slid down the ladder and onto the moon's surface, he was standing on slid ground. There were only a few inches of dust. Again, the scientists calculated that, with that amount of dust from passing and crashed debris, the moon could not be older than a few tens of thousands of years. This same principal could be applied to Earth. Are you feet deep in space dust? I don't think so.

3. Saturn's Rings: With the number of Saturn's moons, and the asteroids and other celestial bodies passing through its rings, the disturbances are enourmous. Cassinni captured pictures of a "wake" a moon had created in the rings. This "wake" disrupted the rings for hundreds of miles behind and around its path. Once again, scientists went to work. They determined that with the pristine condition of the rings, and the amount of destruction and disturbance each day/month/year, that Saturn's rings, given an age of 5 billion years, would simply be an unorganized dust cloud. Again, they gave an age in the tens of thousands.

Anyway, that's just my input. Good night all.

I suppose I should note, though (to be contrary, if nothing else) that life does not, in fact, have whatever meaning you give it. Either it has the above meaning (read that as: none) or it has some religious meaning or another. Just because you say that munchkins and rainbows are the meaning of life doesn't make it true, and is not sufficient justification for one's continued existance.


From an objective standpoint that's true. Who said life needs an objective meaning, however?

To say that life has no meaning is not to say that life has no worth. You confuse not believing in translucent, primitive, man-made explanations of being with indifference toward life.

Ah, but believing or disregarding these so-called "Translucent, primitive, man-made explinations of being" is the very root of the meaning of life. That was my point.

Ah, but believing or disregarding these so-called "Translucent, primitive, man-made explinations of being" is the very root of the meaning of life. That was my point.

How so? What meaning does a Deity give life?

Uh, I oppose participating in such religions, so your sarcasm is ineffective. I favor interpretive, empirical thought, not a social crutch for a quick answer to make me feel better about being insignificant and unable to fully comprehend the world around me without fairy tales.

I don't understand how some people can say "you can make your own destiny" - this is idiotic. If there is such a thing as predestination (and I see no reason to think that there isn't, mathematically speaking), then each one of us has a destiny; this means we cannot create our own destinies . . . being an evolutionist or a creationist changes nothing, when one considers what predestination actually means.

If evolution were true, things could still be predestined; in strict, scientific terms, there is more reason to believe that things are the way they are because of a very clearly defined and precise set of actions and reactions than to believe that an "accident" is actually possible . . . there very idea that an accident is possible is something of a silly notion, I should say, were you to ask me.

Ah, but believing or disregarding these so-called "Translucent, primitive, man-made explinations of being" is the very root of the meaning of life. That was my point.

I respectfully disagree.

Anger, generosity, hate, and love are all man-made ideas. But let me make a point with this. The one idea in humanity is choice and it exceeds humanity. All living things have the power to choose.

But back to the meaning of life.
As I said in my last post the meaning of life is not the same globally. It is different for every living thing. We choose are own meaning and when we do it affects everybody and everything.

To me that is how it works.

I know God is real.


Quick question, do you know you know that God is real or do you know that you believe God is real?

Atheism is equally foolish; the complexity of the human body, the unimaginable amount of factors that were required for life to exist on this planet and a host of other "coincidences" prove general chaos unlikely.

Meh. The human body is only "complex" from our particular perspective since we don't perceive the elements comprising it as distinct (no, I'm not talking about your spleen, I'm talking about the very basic building blocks. If there are any). Depending on your perspective the human body is no more or less complex than a solar system.

As for "unimaginable amount of factors that were required for life to exist on this planet" well, "life" just happens to be a mystifying label we have for one particular set of interractions which is, depending on how you perceive it, no more mystifying than a star forming or a particle bonding to another particle. And consider how much "stuff" (choose your own basic level of distinguishing one entity from another here) there is in the universe. How many individual interractions do you think go on every nano-second? How many nano-seconds have there been since the birth of the universe? Everything is due to an "unimaginable amount of factors", it's the nature of the universe.

And there are no coincidences. That's a by-product of our limited intellect.

Atheism is only as foolish as any other belief given the unimaginable complexity of our world and our status as conscious meat. Doesn't make it untenable. If we weren't foolish we wouldn't be human.

If all things are God, then nothing is more or less holy than anything else, and the individual human itself is as equally embued with Godhead as a twig or a snail or a cloud or a graphics card. If all things are holy and divine, then there becomes nothing for a sentient believer to specifically focus upon and place themselves in relation to which is more or less valid than anything else.

As I say, I can't really explain this too well.


You explained it very well.



Parallel example: if all things were blue, and never changed their shade, then the quality blue would lose its meaning.

Only if a person looks at the world from a linear, hiearchal point of view (ie god is greater and has more significance than man who is greater and has more significance than animals, etc.)

If, on the other hand, a person doesn't hold that meaning has to come from the idea of having to be "more or less valid than anything else" then the world becomes full of infinite shades of color.

Look at it this way, every memeory shapes the chemistry and morphology of the human brain, and in some small way helps create who you are at any given second. Just reading this has changed you in some small way. Likewise, everything that you do changes and helps re-create the beings who interact with you and then they in turn interact with others, and so it continues. Had you not read this, your interaction with them may have been different in some small way thus causing their future interactions to be different.

Basically the panthiestic worldview places everything as an active participant in the ultimate, infinite web of cause and effect. As such, it doesn't make everything the same, but celebrates the unique contribution of each individual thing and each individual moment.

I return to the issue of God. Evolutionists claim that the solar system is nearly five billion years old. There are a few undeniable pieces of evidence that show that the solar system cannot be any older than 100,000 to 200,000 years.

1. Saturn's moon, Io: Io is the most volcanically active body in the solar system. Each day it belches up a large fraction (can't remember the figures) of its mass. The Cassinni Probe calculated the mass of Io, and with these calculations, atheistic scientists determined that at that rate, Io would have frozen, nearly all of its mass ejected from volcanoes, billions of years ago, assuming, of course, the solar sytem was 5 billion years old.


Io is kept warm internally, by the tremendous tidal forces due to it's close proximity to Jupiter.





3. Saturn's Rings: With the number of Saturn's moons, and the asteroids and other celestial bodies passing through its rings, the disturbances are enourmous. Cassinni captured pictures of a "wake" a moon had created in the rings. This "wake" disrupted the rings for hundreds of miles behind and around its path. Once again, scientists went to work. They determined that with the pristine condition of the rings, and the amount of destruction and disturbance each day/month/year, that Saturn's rings, given an age of 5 billion years, would simply be an unorganized dust cloud. Again, they gave an age in the tens of thousands.


Your (ahem) "source" has forgotten that the moonlets in and around the rings act like "shepherds", keeping the ring particles in their respective planes.

Don't know who your source is, but it sounds suspiciously like the ICR arguments. You might like to know their reputation is highly questionable and have been known to not only distort the fact, but completely falsify and fabricate information to support their arguments....

Right then! Prove to me that life could not be as it is now other than by this unsubstantiated theory of amino acids and elecricity. No well then you can't make a statement saying life could only be brought about by this set of events. Science does not know enough to make such sweeping statements and no scientist I know would ever make a statement based on the loose facts we have that rules out any other solution. thye may say it is less likley to happen with current knowledge.
I am no creationist but it boils my p*ss when supposed scientist make such sweeping satement based on such thin evidence.

um, every single bit of evidence we have supports my statement. based on what we know of biology, thermodynamics, and the physical laws that comprise what we consider physical reality, life would not exist in its present form if there were a more energetically efficient way for it to exist; if a better (read: more stable/reduced) form existed, energy would HAVE to collapse into it.

do you really mean to tell me that you protest science without understanding the most basic energetic and biological concepts? no, no that cannot be the case. surely you are just playing dumb to make some obscure point...?

From the original point: "... Then life has no meaning."

Most evolutionists realize this. Out of this one sentence, we get such things as voluntary abortion, when there is absolutely no need, as the baby will not kill the mother, we also get fetal stem cell research, society inherits murderers and killers "convinced" that they're simply ridding the world of a useless species that destroys everything it lays hands on.


Let me just make sure that I understand what you are trying to say. You are accusing a theory that at its heart is all about the passing on of genetic material for making those who believe in it want to kill fetuses and wipe out the species. Please explain how this makes any sense at all.



You also must wonder, legends are not made up. They come from a root, something in the past which was so distorted, changed over time that it became just that: a legend. All ancient cultures, and every single civilization up until Darwin's "Origin of the Species", worshiped some God or gods, Diety or dieties, etc. One must wonder: Why would every single people ever to live on the planet believe in a God? Do you think the very first civilizations made them up? Of course not! Why would they put forth a radical idea such as a higher being when humans are so self-aggrandizing and egotistical?

Or, is there really some Higher Being? Did he present himself to man, create them, and the Human race passed this knowledge on from generation to generation, and as they spread across the globe, founding new civilizations, they had distant memories of stories of gods, and re-created them?

Obviously, yes, humans would put forth the radical idea of a higher being. Look at the historical development of religions. The spirits, dieties, gods, or whathaveyou tended to get placed higher and higher on a cosmic scale and further above humanity as time passed. The general trend in the history of worship has been one from where everything possessed its own divine-type spirt that was more or less equal to all the other spirits but just in control of its own sphere of influence, to attributing gods with major spheres of influence and placing them above but not beyond the physical world, to deciding that there is just one god, to deciding that there was just one god and if an individual doesn't worship and serve and hold as supreme that one god then the individual gets eternally punished.

If there were a higher being that created everything and then revealed himself to humans, then would not the earliest religions have been about a singular higher power who commanded absolute worship, and then that story have gotten distorted into time into the idea that there are higher powers who we should maybe sort of honor?


If life has no purpose, then why do atheists scream out against chopping down trees, bombing civilians, and so forth?

If believing in a creator gives life a purpose they why are so many God-worshiping people so gung-ho about cutting down trees and bombing civilizations (killing men, women, children, and OH NOES the fetuses!!111!! :eek: of the people they bomb?)

Violets and Kitties I agree with you.
It is illogical to think the purpose of humanity is to get into heaven and you get rewarded for all you have done in your life. That is a childish Idea. Some people in the history of humanity have done some really nice and genorous things but they were not awarded in anyway during their lives.

Violets and Kitties I agree with you.
It is illogical to think the purpose of humanity is to get into heaven and you get rewarded for all you have done in your life. That is a childish Idea. Some people in the history of humanity have done some really nice and genorous things but they were not awarded in anyway during their lives.

But were they rewarded after their lives?

Basically the panthiestic worldview places everything as an active participant in the ultimate, infinite web of cause and effect. As such, it doesn't make everything the same, but celebrates the unique contribution of each individual thing and each individual moment.

Indeed, but it is also possible to hold this view if one believes in an entirely materialistic universe, and to celebrate its wonder without any reference to the divine or any idealistic existence. This is what I mean by God being rendered irrelevant by pnatheism - Spinoza's philosophy was an atheist description of the world cloaked in a cunning theistic disguise.

"Evolutionist" is just a term invented by those who choose to disregard science for those who do not.

Besides, scientific theories do not have ramifications, they simply attempt to explain the world; they do not put forward proposals for actions, and as such there are no ramifications of which to speak.

If, by "ramifications", the question means "logical conclusions" then the answer is "of course".

Has any of you actually read the bible book of Genosis?

Has any of you actually read the bible book of Genosis?

No, but I have read Genesis

No, but I have read Genesis

You know wot i mean

No one can make life have meaning. They can, however, see life as having meaning, or being meaningless, essentially having no higher purpose.

I am steering my arguments away from religion itself, so you who were unable to notice that, know.

I follow now the theory that life is meaningless. Now, if life is meaningless, meaning it has no purpose, then it is worthless. If something has no purpose, it has no meaning, if it has no meaning, it is worth nothing.

For example: The most ornate chair in the world may not have been crafted for sitting in, but it was created to bring an air of prestige to its owner. Then it has a purpose still. It also has value.

If something is rare, it has value. If something is plentiful, it is nigh worthless. Life is abundant on this world, and, according to probability theory, many others. Life simply means consciousness. Living creatures are conscious. They need not be carbon-based, but simply conscious.

Also, that which is inherently complex about our bodies is no more complex than an ecosystem. So, complexity is not special to the Human race either.

Therefore, life is worthless.

There have been theories that life is simply a means by which DNA can survive. DNA evolves ever complex organisms to ensure its own survival. Second, should life have been a random occurance, binding of chemicals which formed the first amino acid, that life would have no purpose. It would be a fluke, of no value or worth.

Therefore, life can be dispatched at will. Human fetuses, or any fetus for that matter, can be killed whenever the mother or owner wishes. After all, it is not worth anything, it is of no value. It has no meaning, no purpose other than to carry on the existance of a meaningless race of accidental creatures.

Meaningless men and women can futily try to murder as many other meaningless and worthless creatures as possible before taking their own worthless and meaningless lives.

Now, as to the point made that there are many God-worshipping warhawks, gun toters, and hunters. I go back to my point that religion may be distorted, that it may have been altered, and that most of it out there may be attempts at infamy by attention deficient or even well intending men and women.

I assume you are speaking of the "religous right" here in America. I point to the fact that plants are in fact alive, and that vegitarians are killing plants too. God also makes provisions in just about every religion, again, not cult, for the killing of animals for our own food. Assuming that life has purpose, then Man is of a higher order than the beasts, and, logically, is higher up on the food chain. Therefore, he would use animals for his own food.

As to war. War has been, and always shall be, a part of man. Unless, somehow, everyone can give up aspirations of their own unshared power and cooperate, and accept the differences of humanity's branches, war will be unavoidable. Killing civilians is an awful thing, but, civilians will die in any war. May I remind you that over ten thousand civilians have died in terrorist attacks. Although our fight against the terrorists and the nations that harbor them will produce civilian casualties, it is terribly more important that the terrorists be stopped from their murderous, misguided, actions.

<More to come>

No one can make life have meaning. They can, however, see life as having meaning, or being meaningless, essentially having no higher purpose.

No, because meaning exists not in a thing itself, but in the relationship between it and an observer, thus it is possible for individuals to invest things with value or meaning. This is distinct from merely 'seeing' something as having meaning, because that implies that they may be mistaken in placing value upon something.

There are such things as 'absolutes' which our civilization is so fond of disregarding and making sure are buried in some unmarked grave. And, as everyone is so fond of pointing out, there are differing viewpoints in the world. As such, some may not see what actually is, or may disregard it, and others may see the actuality.

By the way, what is ICR? My astrometrical arguments come straight from JPL and NASA.

Alas, I hath erred. I stated that Io was a moon of Saturn. It actually orbits Jupiter. Verily, I apologize.

Secondly, how in Calvin's name would tidal forces keep a planet heated? It wouldn't matter, the very core of the planet would be ejected, depleted. It would be hollow, its mass on its crust, cooled and frozen. Now, if there was friction between the particles and an atmosphere, etc, you could possibly stretch the tidal force hypothesis that far, but, please, provide proof, scientific and/or logical proof as to how tidal forces could prevent a moon's core from continual ejection and eventual depletion and cooling.

EDIT: I just discovered that Jupiter's atmosphere/gravity tears away 1,000 kilograms of Io's mass each second. So...

Indeed, but it is also possible to hold this view if one believes in an entirely materialistic universe, and to celebrate its wonder without any reference to the divine or any idealistic existence. This is what I mean by God being rendered irrelevant by pnatheism - Spinoza's philosophy was an atheist description of the world cloaked in a cunning theistic disguise.

Oops. I realize I totally missed the point of the blue metaphor.

But yeah. Referring to the divine or idealistic is just one human point of view. Using math and science is another human point of view. When the material world and the spiritual are absolutely exactly the same then a person can choose his/her prefered point(s) of view and still see the same universe because there is no difference in what is actually there, the only "difference" is how the viewer chooses to describe it.

Why must life (in the secular sense) have a 'meaning'?
Perhaps the fact that life exists at all is the meaning.

Insofar as all the physics arguments (either pro or con)go, consider this: It is entirely probable that our understanding of the laws of physics (or, more accurately, the laws of the universe) are imperfect. That's the nature of science (and something that irks me to no end when used by creationists to disprove evolution)... we observe, hypothesize, recreate, and reevaluate, until our understanding fits the facts, rather than molding the facts to fit our expectations. Just remember... not too very long ago, people... intelligent, learned people, thought the world was flat and that the sun orbited the earth.

:rolleyes: Have you ever considered that evolution can be true AS WELL as being caused by something similar to your God? I personally don't subscribe to that Deity, but why wouldn't it be ok for you to accept 'evolution' and still place Him at the top of it all? After all, the emergent property of evolution is a pretty 'miraculous' thing if you think about it hard enough. That way, you can have all the morality you want, and yet not appear to be a crazy person.
Why do people label Christians who believe in creation crazy? Where is this so called tolerance that I always hear people talking about? I do not mean to be rude or flame but why do you do that? It demeans your arguement when you use terms like that... I formed my faith and beliefs after many years of searching and studying... So I came to a different conclusion then you or others that does not make me crazy or stupid....

But were they rewarded after their lives?

I don't believe in the false dichotomy of life and afterlife.
(Yes, you may call THIS a form of faith :) )

Putting aside the evolution/creation debate for now and purely examining the philosophical side of things, I want to ask evolutionists if they have considered the moral concequences behind their beliefs.


'Kay and 'I have'.


Logicaly if life is an acident and it could have happened anywhere anytime anyway etc, then it has no meaning and no purpose yes.


No.

Life needed certain conditions to exist. It still needs certain conditions to exist. Even non-living matter needs certain conditions to exist (ex: ice cube). To this day we have restrictions that range from needing air/warmth/food/water to needing the company of others. We also have finite individual bodies, are held down by gravity, live for a limited lifetime, etc.

These restrictions help define who we are and to prove that we, in fact, exist. Suddenly 'appearing' from nothing, as well as from the will of a omnipotent being makes me think we haven't EARNED the right to exist and that we are merely an object, albeit a work of art. Natural things take time to become complex, like the Grand Canyon and life. Unnatural things, like dreams, appear instantly and can be very complex, but they are fake. I prefer thinking humans are natural and have the ability to give natural and unnatural things meaning.

Existence itself is meaningful. Even things that do not live or die have significance down to their atoms all because we intelligent beings are driven by the need to give them meaning in order to define ourselves. Unless, of course, inanimate objects can appreciate things. In that case intelligence has little to do with meaning. If a tree falls in the forest with no one else around, does it make a sound? Only if trees and rocks can sense the change somehow (I sense a disturbance in the Force!). If life wasn't around would any collisions between non-living things matter, no matter how horrendous the collision? Would the 'destroyed' objects care or at least feel a change?

We feel we need intelligence to appreciate things. I have no idea if a rock or tree appreciates anything since I have never been a rock or tree (although if I take peyote that opinion may change a bit). Do rocks and trees have souls? Do WE have souls? Do souls exist? No one knows. We've never seen our own souls nor anyone elses. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?


I mean if it was a random convergence of amino acids and other various chemicals then what are we doing here now?


Dont poo-poo mere chemicals. Those chemicals are keeping you alive right now.

No one ever said that mere chemicals could have no meaning. Ever look up to the sky and stare at clouds or the stars. Just atoms. Stars are giant balls of incandescent hydrogen gas incredible distances away. The moon is a hunk of rock in space. Clouds are water molecules being shaped by temperature and air currents. These simple yet complex things have inspired humans in ways I cannot begin to define. For what we know of it, the sky is filled with vast amount of nothing and has more meaning than you could ever write about.

As for the passage of time, mankind's greatest works of art are rarely created in a matter of moments, but rather over many months, years or even lifetimes. The amount of time to create adds more meaning to the work in question.

Even if God did create us as you say, the fact that mankind has been pursuing the meaning of life in the form of art, science, and YES even religion for a long time and we have never once found the answer, would be proof that even divine creation has not given our lives any meaning.


Have you considered that if life is an acident then we are all but acidents and life has little if no meaning if there is no reason for us being here beyond chance? I think that this is the problem many people have with your perspecive.

See above. We give our lives meaning by existing and looking for this elusive 'meaning'. We struggle to find meaning by placing restrictions/disciplines on ourselves and describing emotions in art. Being given everything in life does not give you purpose. If you want proof I'll give you Paris Hilton and raise you a George W. Bush. Two dumbasses who would be the first to be eaten if their airplane crashed in the Andes. Though they'd probably fuck Hilton first.

To shed more light on my beliefs: Vampires in GOOD vampire movies (Bram Stoker's Dracula, Queen of the Damned, Shadow of the Vampire) are constant violators of the restrictions that bind us to reality. The are eternal (we are not), can take many non-human forms (we can't), do not socialize well with normal humans (due to a combination of blood drinking and nocturnal behaviour) and are always looking for the love of a good woman (which never really works out for them). They look for acceptance. For meaning to their un-lives. They never find it. This is because they are, by nature, soulless and have no soul in which to define these things.

Some may say a child is an extension of a man and woman. Is it a mere object? Does it become a person, a LIFE, when it makes its own decisions? Children are not worthless...just useless...they shit their diapers and eat food for nothing in return. That is all that they would be if we didn't give their existance meaning. We love our children and someday they will grow up to make their own decisions and have children of their own. We find them beautiful and know they have worth, even if in reality, a child is useless. A child exists because we give it meaning. The degree of meaning tends to differ (namely is life made at conception or birth). Forget about a child and it goes away...that is until the police find the body of the starved infant and sends your ass to jail. Even dead children can have significance *shudder*.

By saying we are created by God it really destroys the soul, making us puppets and unnatural. As if we were works of art that are magnificent but have no real world function, and are therefore an extension of God but not a being unto itself. I like to believe that we are not tied to fate or some superbeing like a puppet is to the puppeteer. I find things good and evil. I hurt. I feel joy. I have free will. Does a work of art do these things? If objects have souls, maybe. I really don't think you'd be a supporter of the 'objects have souls' theory. I'm not either.

I am not a lesser thing dependant on a creator. I am an adult free to make my own decisions and appreciate what I want to appreciate. I have a soul because I look for the meaning in life. I am natural.

In your argument you outright assume we have no purpose if mere atoms came together to get life going over many millenia. As an intelligent being I was hoping you'd see the beauty of something so complex forming from something so simple, all on its own. Life, Grand Canyon, or a self-made man...its all admirable and often beautiful. I feel nothing but pride when I think of a bunch of small-town atoms making it big.

Atoms account for a Hell of a lot, so says this mass of atoms right here.

To the chinese dude who got on me about saying atheism is foolish:

First off, I'm more in your boat than religious zealots, believe me. I was vaguely atheistic myself for a while. My point, though, was that to believe that God or, under my idea, a less sentient and moralistic force, simply can not exist given some of the naturally occurring systems we find, our bodies among them, is as closed-minded as saying God exists in this form because this book says so. Without evidence for either, the best we can theorize in the middle, so just jumping to a pole and refusing to budge is stubborn and not conducive to progress on ever finding any sort of answer to the question. The likelihood of that ever happening is obviously not great, but that doesn't make it a worthless venture considering the otherwise insignificance of our nature. To me, believing in a God simply to belong to a common mindset is foolish, and believing God can not exist because he doesn't come knock on our doors and light up a J with us every now and then is as well. Like I said, I believe "God" as a supervisory father figure doesn't exist, that the force which regulates our universe is likely everything and everywhere; it exists yet doesn't exist specifically, simply a force of general balance which works very slowly, and certainly has no sentient mind which cares about whether we do good or bad in our lives. I leave myself open to ideas and new evidence though, and any who polarize themselves on the issue and put on blinders to anything which contradicts their opinion is a stubborn and unprogressive stance. That was my only point.

Why do people label Christians who believe in creation crazy? Where is this so called tolerance that I always hear people talking about? I do not mean to be rude or flame but why do you do that? It demeans your arguement when you use terms like that... I formed my faith and beliefs after many years of searching and studying... So I came to a different conclusion then you or others that does not make me crazy or stupid....

Creation != Creationism.

In order to be a Creationist, one has to go through crazy and illogical assumptions and ignore half the data.

In order to believe in creation, one only has to believe.