Cool topic:

What we are really talking about here is the purpose of life, IMO. Do we just live, screw, then die? Does it really matter if I fly my plane into a building in Texas? If I am "good", will I get some awesome reward for eternity? What about all those virgins homicide bombers are supposed to receive? Do true believers or atheists have more faith? Why am I here?

There are a few options here.
1) Life has no spiritual purpose, thus no evil and no good
2) Life might have spiritual purpose, evil and good to a certain extent
3) Life does have spiritual purpose, so their is good and evil

Headshot said the following: "My personal view is it doesn't matter whether there are gods or no. This is because they don't seem to have any effect on anyone's life..."

You have this 100% upside down. The ENTIRE history of our species completely hinges on how religious/spiritual questions have been answered by different groups of humans as the centuries have come and gone! Our system of right and wrong has been defined and dominated by those who "believe" or those who ardently don't believe in God. The fingerprints of the 10 commandments are all over our current, USA, laws. Some forms of government have generally been accepting of religion, while others are virulently opposed to anything except state-controlled "religion."

Gandhi once said, "be the change you want to see in the world." By teaching man to bridle his passions, religion helps make this world a more moderate place. Obviously there are MANY false teachers, and people who are willfully ignorant, or just not well-informed. Religion is a motivator for good in the hearts of millions, probably billions, of humans each and every day. People love to point out all of the times religion has been hijacked by evil men, without ever stopping to think about the positives of having a society that believes in order and the rule of law... How can you accurately solve an equation if you only look at part of it?

[steps off soapbox]

I HIGHLY recommend reading "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief" by Francis S. Scott when/if any of you get a chance!!! (He was the lead scientist for the international human genome project).

Cordially,

DarkJello (Zeus still lives)

P.S. The major world religions ALL teach that we should be honest, hard-working, doers of good... not steal, not kill, not rape, not beat... Thousands of years later many of the specifics are different, but all of the basic laws are the same. I am fascinated by how universally man has attempted to define his existence with a definition of a God or Gods.

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I was talking about the actual gods themselves existing or not, not the concept of them, which has nothing to do with whether they are real or not. Same as with the concept of some alien living in a distant galaxy: we can't get into any contact with them so it doesn't matter one bit whether they actually are there or not, but whether we think about them or not has an effect on our popular culture at least. The concept of God is somehow hardwired into our brains as a byproduct of some evolutionary process, they say. Many cultures have come up with their own deities independently.

Belief in God isn't necessary for having a system of right and wrong, but word of God is handy for enforcing some arbitrary rules that don't come naturally to us, like prohibition to eat pig or drink booze for example. Having said that, of course having a religious or philosophical world view which gives reasons to be "good" helps at being good. This is why I think religions are mostly ok though they often make people think less, which is a downside. But religions can come in many forms and need not include God, although most religions have one or even many. For example buddhism's ethical system is pretty much equivalent to that of christianity's, and there is no god involved. Most of the basic inclinations for ethical behaviour like don't kill your kin or anyone without a good reason are either biological adaptations to living in societies or are just passed on from a previous generation to the next simply because they have been found very practical in keeping society functional and most people happy. There has been some talk about religions and morality evolving hand in hand though, so they aren't entirely separable either.

And about the Big Bang: it has nothing to do with anything actually exploding, the name (originally a joke) just describes the explosive expansion of the early universe (which is btw constantly accelerating.) No physical reaction or anything was needed to trigger the big bang. As I said earlier time didn't exist before big bang, it's the zero-point of time in our universe so cause and effect don't make sense at or beyond that point. Moreover there are no immutable laws of physics that had to exist even before big bang, there are just properties of the universe, and the universe didn't exist before big bang, so no problem there. If anything existed before big bang, it was just mathematics, because mathematics is the only thing same in any universe (or other setting??), whether it's applicable or not.

Is there any logical reason why big bang had to be triggered by some preceding condition, but the same doesn't apply for the preceding condition? I mean, if our universe couldn't have come to be by itself without anything / anyone making it happen, then how come the thing that was behind it didn't need anything to create it or make it happen? You can go on with this endlessly. It doesn't make any more sense for some magical sentient being popping out of nowhere than our universe doing the same. Therefore it makes sense to cut the chain before we have to start thinking about something outside our universe, that is, on the zero-point of time.

So headshot, if I understand correctly, you are saying that the big bang can't/won't ever be able to be proven, due to the fact that nothing triggered it, nothing needed to happen to cause it, and basically nothing mattered before it? You seem to enjoy saying that "religion is fine, but seems to stop people from thinking", but this "explanation" seems like, if anything, a reason not to have to think about why/how the universe was created.

As for "arbitrary rules such as not eating pig and not drinking booze". These rules both make plenty of sense. Pork is one of the worst meats for your body, and booze not only is bad for your body, but altars your mind and may cause you to do things you shouldn't do. These rules make plenty of sense to me.

great post HS.



halting a single faulty thought exercise is not the same as preventing discussion/thought about all things.



your thoughts on pork aren't supported by any of the health literature that I'm familiar with. and alcohol was an essential weapon to combat sanitation problems for centuries. Just look at this list and tell me you don't think they're arbitrary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taboo_food_and_drink

Hey why was my post deleted? I don't think it was flamey. Or maybe I forgot to try posting again after I timed out while writing it? That's quite possible. Well anyway, here it is, retrieved from browser history, hopefully there will be some explanation why it's removed if that's going to happen:

Uh no, that's not what I was saying at all. Thanks to observations of cosmic background radiation among other things and our knowledge in general relativity, if we assume the cosmological principle, we can conclude our universe started from a very dense and hot state over some 13 billion years ago and has been expanding ever since. That means big bang has in a sense already been proven, though the early moments can't be understood without some sort of grand unified theory, like some version of string theory, that generalizes both quantum theory and general relativity into one theory. Maybe you meant this:I just meant cutting the chain of cause and effect at the point where we would have to start thinking about something outside of our universe, because we can never ever obtain any information about such things. This means accepting that the big bang happened just because it happened.

The reason why muslims can't eat pork is "because it's a filthy animal" so it surely is arbitrary when viewed in its original context when people were dying of hunger all around the world all the time and pork has was a very handy source of nutrition back then. By booze I meant any alcohol, which is also forbidden to muslims. Sure, usefulness of alcoholic drinks is questionable today, but again we have to look at the context of that rule being invented. From wikipedia: "Since the purity of water could seldom be guaranteed, alcoholic drinks were a popular choice, having been boiled as part of the brewing process. Beer also provided a considerable amount of the daily calories in the northern regions." In addition, one pint of beer per a day is shown to good for health by most studies. Besides, I wasn't implying either of those rules are necessarily bad or oppressive. In fact I don't eat pork either. Most of the rules of what's right or wrong in the major religions are good, I never said otherwise. It would be horrible if everyone didn't care about anything else than his / her own pleasure or continuity of his / her own genes and I can't personally even imagine living by those guidelines only, it would feel horribly empty for me. I think some kind of religious-like world-view is necessary for most people to remain functional, though it need not include god or life after death necessarily.

I think you can logically prove the presence of good, evil and their untold brother neutral.

We must also not forget chaotic and lawful. (thats right I just went D&D on your asses)

UBER et al:

(AKA the dude that kills royalty)

Just gonna start by plugging the book I mentioned, "The Language of God..." by Francis S. Scott. I was informed by an ethnic noob that wikipedia has a nice entry on the book. It is an absolutely fascinating read, and 100% relevant to the topic at hand.

Ok, the D&D reference is quite funny! Thanks for keeping it real while we hash this out a bit. I am gonna go out on a limb here, but the very fact that people serve God or worship the Devil in and of itself basically makes them real. These same people begin to actually live/choose/act in a different way, that changes the world for better or worse.

Examples:
1) I believe God is real, and wants me to do kind deeds, so I spend some of my hard-earned cashola helping the sick. Some of this goodness catches on, and others "pass it forward."
2) I believe the Devil can give me power and wealth, but I have to follow his "rules" first. Watch out for these folks, because they will go sith lord on your a$$! (Yep, I went SW).
3) I don't believe in God or the Devil. People conquer or perish solely based on their ability, talent, skillZ, craftiness, and intelligence. No right or wrong, just what you can get away with to "move ahead" in this life.

In none of the aforementioned examples does the actual existence of God or the Devil really matter! I believe he does exist, but that is beside the point. Because bazillions of people have, do, and probably always will believe in one or both "movers", religion and spirituality will continue to have a major impact on world history AND your own individual life. It is completely inescapable.

Final thought, for now... Do you really think a world full of people that think like the example in #3 would be better than what we have right now? A lot of people feel this way, but I don't believe it is the majority... yet...

Food for thought,

DarkJello

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So what are you saying here?
That you theists are good kind people, and we atheists are egoists with a "move ahead" mentality?
I find your "set of examples" close-minded, arrogant, and downright offensive.

Is it inconceivable to you that people can tell right from wrong on their own, and not because some imaginary father figure told them what's what? Can't you?
At least when I perform acts of kindness, it's coming from me, and not from playing some cosmic game of "Simon Says".
Oh, and my acts of kindness don't include forcing women to have unwanted children, and denying homosexuals basic human rights. But that's just a bonus.

Food for thought indeed.

The only problem with those 3 possibilities is the assume the existence of good and evil requires a higher power.

Yes I know, I'm a christian and I'm saying that.

You would first have to hypothesize what good an evil is. For instance cannibalism. Cannibalism is claimed to be practiced by certain cultures but realistically every culture has an account of cannibalism in extreme times of starvation (such as ship wrecks.) Christians metephoricaly cannibalize jesus by drinking the blood of christ. So is cannibalism merely a food cliche for our culture or is it definitively evil?

The wiki on cannibalism is also interesting. I was disgusted reading it but couldn't look away lol.

yaron:

Those were just a few basic examples of how different people view the world. Broad generalizations, nothing more. I know people that fit perfectly into each of those categories. Self-righteous people and self-absorbed people are equally "wrong", and are on opposite ends of a spectrum. Those who are more moderate, for whatever reason, make the world a better place to live in.

You appear to have jumped into deeper water with the second paragraph. Not sure why you are so upset. "Right" and "wrong" is so completely subjective and transitory. It does not really mean much if it is just the random thoughts of a mere human. I comply with laws that are "wrong" because I believe in honoring and obeying the law. Just one example of using my own agency to choose the "best" course.

The acts of kindness stuff is a bit much. I don't walk around tabulating my good deeds so I can earn some celestial reward. Be the change you want to see in the world. (Gandhi). It sounds as if you are saying only atheists have pure motives. Please clarify.

You finished with the following nugget: "forcing women to have unwanted children, and denying homosexuals basic human rights." My wife wants to have more kids, and I am thinking about a vasectomy. You have me 180 degrees wrong. And I have never, ever denied anyone their basic human rights. Although what you mean by "basic human rights" is another fine example of a highly subjective area. So we are kinda talking in circles without a list that we can both point to and agree on. A discussion on where these rights come from would probably be interesting/revealing as well.

DarkJello

(back to the salt mines)

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