Fungi Forums
Miscellaneous => General Chat => Not at the Dinner Table => Topic started by: Shyguy92 on September 23, 2008, 08:39:56 PM
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Either something happens, or it doesn't, simple as that. That is my opinion. Discuss.
I'm pretty sure that this goes in here. You religious people will find something....
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"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
- Woody Allen
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Aristotle would disagree with you.
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Is the first post supposed to be saying time doesn't exist, because I don't really get it.
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Aristotle would disagree with you.
Who, me, Shyguy or Woody Allen?
Anyway, yeah, time is a uh concept we use to describe why thing happen in an order as opposed to happening at random times.
Will think of a better description once I've had either sleep or caffeine.
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Either something happens, or it doesn't, simple as that.
That's got more to do with, like, cause and effect than... time.
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Whoa, time doesn't exist? I don't even know how to approach this one. I'm pretty sure someone said time exists within the universe. So before the universe...time wasn't there...but for the universe to exist there had to be a time before the universe...
ARGH! My brain hurts.
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I perceive time. This is all that is important.
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"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
- Woody Allen
Shyguy92
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"Time is nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
- Woody Allen
times.
No. Time does not exist, it doesn't have too. It's pretty hard to explain. Just think about it....
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Things can't happen without the flow of time, so your first post is self-contradicting. I think our perception of time might be due to us traveling along the "time plane" or something rather than time "flowing" but one way or another our perception is what matters. Time certainly exists somehow, though, because it can be trapped in black holes, and if we were to move close to the speed of light, time would theoretically move slower for us.
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Oh.
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If time didn't exist there would never be a time that this thread would have been posted...
I got to give this a tad bit more thought though... I have a feeling I'm missing something important.
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Okay.
Time is, like the Internet, not a physical piece of matter, or even an abstract force. It's the name we give to the concept that something must be propelling us through our lives. So, in that regard, I guess time as most people think of it does not exist. But it, um, does.
Egh never mind.
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No. Time does not exist, it doesn't have too. It's pretty hard to explain. Just think about it....
No. Time exists, it has to. It's pretty hard to explain. Just think about it...
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Okay.
Time is, like the Internet, not a physical piece of matter, or even an abstract force. It's the name we give to the concept that something must be propelling us through our lives. So, in that regard, I guess time as most people think of it does not exist. But it, um, does.
Egh never mind.
I agree with this. It is a name for something that we know exists, yet we don't know what to call it..
Er.. this is a hard topic to discuss.. Now, if it were about time travel...
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Ok. This thread is now about TIME TRAVEL.
I heard that you could travel through time if you turned everything in the universe around. That's BS right?
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Now we're on my turf.
Unless of course, someone goes back in time and makes it their turf. But then, since it'd be their turf by the time they send themselves back in time, they would have no reason to send themselves back to claim the turf, meaning they would not have done so, meaning it would not be their ruf, so they send themselves back in time to claim it as their turf...
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That is totally my ruf.
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What about anti-time?
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimages1.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fmemoryalpha%2Fen%2Fimages%2Fthumb%2F9%2F9d%2FQ_and_Picard_all_good_things.jpg%2F180px-Q_and_Picard_all_good_things.jpg&hash=0a5759abd5ea381fc482fd55f3a5f97f)
lolz anti-time suxx0rz
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On second thought, forget it. Time travel is just as confusing as time.
It's kind of like in games/movies (Back to the Future and M&L:Partners in Time come to mind) where nothing changes in the present, even though the heroes have gone into the past to change things. In the case of PiT, the Bros were destined to meet their baby selves and go back and change the past, hence why the present remained Shroob free. The Bros wouldn't have remembered they met their grown-up selves either because they were too young or.. Darn it! I had another reason, but every time I go to write it down, I forget it.
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I was going to try and invent a time machine, but I realized that if I had ever ended up succeeding, then I would have already brought it back to myself and saved myself the trouble.
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I lol'd
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Time-travel would probably be pretty dangerous. I believe the tiniest of actions can set huge events in motion miles and miles away, so traveling to the past would be a bad idea. The future is a little safer, but nobody knows what the future holds, and you could wind up in the worst of situations. What if, by mistake, you take your gas-powered time machine to a future where all civilization is destroyed and fossil fuels have been exhausted?
Yep, I'm fine traveling into the future one second per second. And telling people "I came here from the nineties!!"
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the only time machine on earth is the international date line, which brings you backwards or forewards 1 day depending on where you are coming from. Then again, there is all the 24 time zones, which operate on an hourly basis, and dont forget daylight savings time!
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I'm pretty sure that time paradoxes wouldn't happen; if you went back in time to kill your dad, then you'd just be living in an alternate reality where your dad is dead and you don't exist (officially; you'd still, y'know, be there). And in the other reality, things would continue as normal, although you'd have disappeared. So, yeah, time travel can still screw you up, although it wouldn't make a universe-destroying time paradox.
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"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
I'll add an million imaginary seconds to the life of the first person who can reference the above quote.
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"Ford?" "Yes?" "I think I'm a sofa." "I know how you feel."
(note: I haven't read the book recently enough to remember whether the quote is in there or not, so I'm just quoting the movie that I know it's in)
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No, it wasn't. The first quote was, though.
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The arrow of time?
http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/reality_arrow_of_time.asp
I disagree with the conclusion of the last comic. Knowing three seconds into the future would be very useful.
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The page Luigison linked brings up an excellent point:
The reason humans think they have free will (they actually don't) is because we have memory of the past but not the future.
If we had both, free will would be revealed as an obvious illusion (in fact, the idea wouldn't even exist).
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Yeah, well I don't believe in predestination or a single locked timeline.
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if you could see into the future, you'd be too paranoid to do anything, because you would look at all the negative consequences of your actions, and decide not to do anything.
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if you could see into the future, you'd be too paranoid to do anything, because you would look at all the negative consequences of your actions, and decide not to do anything.
I think you completely missed the point.
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He also hasn't read Slaughterhouse Five apparently...
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The reason humans think they have free will (they actually don't) is because we have memory of the past but not the future.
One reason humans take grammar classes in middle school is so that they don't switch between the 3rd and 1st person in the same sentence.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flizarddude.kontek.net%2FWackyForum%2FWhatYouJustSay.jpg&hash=f6359563841984fb3b45e226c1becab1)
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Gahahahaha. Intentional or not, that was hilarious.
EDIT: I had to see the image's filename in order to figure out its relevance. :/
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg31.imageshack.us%2Fimg31%2F7426%2Fdorf450.jpg&hash=509530a9d37e203ecf7093349d343c03)
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Two years later, I'm not convinced my sentence was grammatically flawed. I am a human, and I was writing to all humans.
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I was an idiot in 2008. Not much has changed, sadly.
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Hey, any time's good for Dorf time.
Time seems like a convenient way for us to get an idea of how long something will take, even if it's all relative. You'd think basing the time of day on where the sun is would be a good idea, but no (worked well enough back in the day though). When the seasons occur and when sunrise and sunset occur are always a bit different, and change depending on where you are. Timezones are on unusual borders, probably to force the world to have timezones that shift in half-hours roughly, but even then there's exceptions. Universal Coordinated Time or whatever you call the universal time these days wouldn't make any sense out in space. We've got leap years and leap seconds and daylight savings time to further muck things up. Think of the computer programmers, man. Think of the computer programmers!
Seems like time's a human concept to show the length between a cause and effect. But when nature's behind the cause and effect, as it often is, then there's no guarantee we know how it works because nature's still something we're trying to understand.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.timeinc.net%2Ftime%2Fmagazine%2Farchive%2Fcovers%2F2006%2F1101061023_400.jpg&hash=bc657349f86a19c64ae8cd406fe53be3)
Time exists.
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I wrongly assumed that the universe has a beginning in my 2008 post.
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I'm gonna hate myself for bringing this meme in, but I can't help myself
Implying that anyone knows anything about everything
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Time exists.
At least until eZines completely take over.
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Is PaperLuigi defying the big bang theory?
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I support the Infinite Universe Theory. The Big Bang Theory suggests that the universe was created.
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Which is what? The only stuff about "Infinite Universe Theory" coming up on a search is some whack non-scientific junk.
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Here. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/In_the_infinite_universe_theory_does_the_universe_have_no_beginning_and_no_end_just_like_numbers_from_negative_numbers_going_to_positive_numbers)
As a man of science though, I am perfectly happy to be proven wrong. My knowledge of theories regarding the origin of the universe is very small.
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"The Big Bang Theory of the origin of the universe is wildly popular largely because most people follow religious tradition in assuming Creation."
Uhh, no. The Big Bang Theory is wildly popular because everything about the observable universe points to it. Galaxies moving away from each other uniformly in all directions, the cosmic background radiation, and a lot of other more convoluted stuff. You say your knowledge is small, but this is like middle-school level science book stuff man.
Why there was a big bang, what happened before it, are there other "universes", that stuff's still pretty much up in the air as far as people having evidence for their theories, but the fact that the universe as we know it directly resulted from the rapid expansion of a superhot and superdense point of matter is extremely well documented, observationally and experimentally supported. You can't just say: I don't think there was a big bang because I don't think there is a creator god.
I recommend taking an astronomy class or reading a book to get info on the origins of the universe instead of a WikiAnswers page.
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Dorf causes far more arguments than he finishes.
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Why there was a big bang, what happened before it, are there other "universes", that stuff's still pretty much up in the air as far as people having evidence for their theories
Okay, that makes sense. So you accept the Big Bang Theory on the basis that we can observe the expansion of the universe. You also accept that the universe is finite, meaning it had a beginning and will have an end; furthermore, there are other potential causes for the the Big Bang other than a creator god. Thank you for proving me wrong.
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It's a relief to remember that such vehement ex-Christians as PL usually come back to their senses after a while.
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d^_____________^b
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I believe the universe is finite, but unbound. Meaning, it has a certain amount of energy/matter, but continues to expand time and space. It began at the big bang, but won't "end" except to say it will get very cold and its particle very far apart. Possibly even ripping the particles themselves to pieces. I'm no expert on the matter though. I stopped paying close attention shortly after reading about the accelerated expansion and dark energy/matter. The explanation at the time seemed like a huge fudge factor to me. LD, you have any books to suggest to catch me up? On the other hand, I have read a little about quantum foam and parallel universes.
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humans think they have free will (they actually don't)
While scouring this thread for an explanation as to why Glorb bumped it, I found this mind-numbingly presumptuous philosophical nugget. Please, elaborate.
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I'll tell you what I believe. Lizard Dude may or may not agree with me.
An alternative view to free will is determinism, which states that every event, including human cognition, behavior, decision, and action, is causally determined by prior events. At some point, determinism asserts that our "decisions" are not caused by free will, but by chemicals located in the brain. It is purely naturalistic and does not go so far as to claim that the brain/body is separate from the mind.
For example, if I am hungry, I do not eat because I want to. I eat because said chemicals "tell" me to eat. Most Christians, I assume, deny determinism because it suggests that we have no souls.
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WeeGee, there's not much to elaborate on. Humans are made of matter like everything else and that matter is just following the laws of physics. Fancy machines. There's no magic. Does a computer have free will? No, it just follows complicated programming. Humans, and all life, is the same. Just much much more complex.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
~Arthur C. Clarke
"Or life."
~Lizard P. Dude
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Re:PL's post, yeah except Christian doctrine also states that God knows everything that's going to happen.
Re: LD's post though, what about quantum mechanics/parallel universes/timelines and stuff? I guess there can never be any evidence but it always seemed plausible to me that each thing that happens or doesn't happen spawns another parallel universe/timeline depending on the outcome.
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LD, you have any books to suggest to catch me up?
I haven't read any astronomy in a few years. All I was trying to point out to PaperLuigi is that it's pretty clear there was a Big Bang. But there's still massive mystery out there! Why is the expansion still accelerating? What's all this dark matter? Why don't relativity and quantum mechanics agree in some cases?
"****ing magnets, how do they work?"
~Shaggy 2 Dope
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LD, your argument makes sense under the premise that humans are soulless, instinctively-driven gutbags. How would you account for decisions which seemingly contradict suvival instinct, though?
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You're using the word "soulless" in a pejorative sense, where I'm not. Just because you're a machine doesn't automatically make you evil, or careless of other life, or perfect. It doesn't make you worthless either. Life is precious and should be respected.
I'm just saying humans aren't magic and don't transcend the laws of physics to "make choices". But our programming does make choices, in a sense. You just don't actually control it. But you think you do. So it doesn't matter, except for discussions like this. It feels the same whether you think you're a robot or magic.
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While I agree that humans will follow their programming, I question whether you really think programming can exist without a programmer.
This is getting into NatDT territory...
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Actually, I meant "soulless" in the technical sense, but I couldn't produce any synonyms which conveyed my point equally accurately. I'll admit that "gutbags" was uncalled-for, though.
Bottom line: We either have actual free will or de facto "free will". What a difference.
This is getting into NatDT territory...
Shouldn't this topic have gone there in the first place?
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Bottom line: We either have actual free will or de facto "free will". What a difference.
The only difference is whether you believe you're magic or not.
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I would object to your use of "magic" as a blanket term for religion and spiritual concepts in general, but I won't for now.
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While I agree that humans will follow their programming, I question whether you really think programming can exist without a programmer.
Well, does a supernatural being lift the sun up every morning?
Also, who or what made the programmer?
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How would you account for decisions which seemingly contradict suvival instinct, though?
You left an "r" out of survival and I think you're using instinct in the wrong way here, but I know what you're asking. (I make lots of similar mistakes so please don't take this criticism the wrong way.)
There are lots of natural decisions that seem counterintuitive, but evolution isn't a program with a set outcome. Rather, mutations happen that may helpful or not depending on other factors. It may seem counterintuitive and even evil for an animal to kill its offspring, but if resources are scarce it may actually be beneficial in the long run if the animal survives and is later able to reproduce when more resources are available.
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Once again, that works, but only under the assumption that humans are just sophisticated, highly-developed animals.
Well, does a supernatural being lift the sun up every morning?
Oh come on; you know better than that. You're like a kid who ran away from home and pretends not to know his address.
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Once again, that works, but only under the assumption that humans are just sophisticated, highly-developed animals.
Uhhhhhhhh, as opposed to what?
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Okay, I'll bite.
As opposed to beings created specially in the image of their Creator to rule over and care for their home and its inhabitants.
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Oh come on; you know better than that. You're like a kid who ran away from home and pretends not to know his address.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. My argument is a valid argument. I'm taking a purely naturalistic stance, as the existence of a god who lifts the sun cannot be proven scientifically. Just like we can't prove the existence of a so-called universal programmer. We can, however, verify the rising of the sun via the scientific method. Philosophically, we'll eventually reach a point where we can't explain something, although I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know something without proof.
Also, is anyone going to address my second question?
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@Turtlekid
Man, too bad we're totally not doing any of that because that actually wouldn't be too bad.
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Uhhhhhhhh, as opposed to what?
Nothing, if that's your approach. While I believe in evolution as a work of God, I know that no animal, no sentient organism, will ever be equatable with humans on a philosophical level. They lack the soul -- the spirit -- the divine connection -- the essential, intangible, extrascientific element which defines a human.
This warrants another topic. Imma do dat.
It's a valid argument.
Sorry, I thought you meant it rhetorically. Obviously, basic astronomic principles are responsible for the phenomenon of sunrise, as is the case for most astronomical occurrences, all of which follow God's grand design.
although I'm not arrogant enough to say that I know something without proof.
Arrogance and faith are practically opposites, guy.
Also, is anyone going to address my second question?
God is as old as time, which, as according to you, has no beginning.
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Obviously, basic astronomic principles are responsible for the phenomenon of sunrise, as is the case for most astronomical occurrences, all of which follow God's grand design.
Proof?
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There's so many of these threads but they're all just exactly the same: people who believe in magic vs. people who don't.
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Yeah, basically.
Also, faith IS arrogant. You assume that you possess mental powers that others do not.
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There's so many of these threads but they're all just exactly the same: people who believe in magic vs. people who don't.
I thought it was people who believe in a God and acknowledge that there isn't ironclad scientific proof of their beliefs vs. people who believe that we evolved from animals and refuse to acknowledge that there isn't ironclad scientific proof of their beliefs.
Yeah, basically.
Also, faith IS arrogant. You assume that you possess mental powers that others do not.
If you're saying you have no faith, then it's pretty obvious that a person of faith has a mental power that you don't. That power is called faith.
If that's not what you meant, I'm afraid I'm not sure what that statement is supposed to imply.
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Faith is arrogant because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do.
Also, it's become Lizard Dude and PaperLuigi vs. Turtlekid and Weegee.
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I never thought the latter two would be lumped in together.
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Besides, PL, faith isn't a "mental power". It's not exclusive, and nor is it arrogant: Quite contrary, it shows humility through submissive trust. If anything, the deified form of science you've lent yourselves to feigns omniscience by asserting that it will eventually answer everything. In reality, it's done little but continually disprove itself.
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That's why it's good. You go with the best evidence you have and base your theories on that. Then you eventually find more stuff out, and have to change some of your ideas around. This is called being rational. This is called basing your worldview on what we actually see, know, and can experimentally verify. You can make a mathematical model, and then predict what will happen in the real world based on it. And that means you probably have a pretty good idea of what's going on. But relativity, quantum theory, they still have known problems where they don't work. There is tons of unknown stuff. What I have described here is not arrogance; it's trying to figure stuff out. Changing your mind when there's a reason to is a smart thing, not a bad thing. Disproving is how science works. It's how you know you're not right about something.
In religion, you make something up because it feels good. Or more likely, go with something someone else made up a really long time ago. And keep believing it forever, not trying to disprove it. You can't really disprove it, because there's no particular evidence behind it.
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LD: Do you believe that there's anything in the world that can never be explained through science?
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By us humans? Possibly. As long as we're stuck on Earth it's going to be pretty darn hard to figure out stuff about pre-Big Bang, are there other "universes" besides the one we know, stuff like that. Although, the stuff we advanced chimps have already figured out about what's out there in the skies while being stuck on little old Earth is still mindblowingly incredible. And there are surely many amazing discoveries out there to come.
But will we figure absolutely everything out? Highly unlikely. But man, when you don't understand something yet you can't just make stuff up and believe it. You just say, "I don't know." It's very hard to admit "I don't know", especially when you're in a position of power. It's also scary not to know things, like what it feels like to die, etc. I suspect a combination of these two difficulties has founded most religions.
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From a Christian standpoint, it's technically impossible for science and religion to conflict. Every discovery made or disproven further deepens our understanding of creation, thus being proof of God.
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Science, if anything, disproves Christianity.
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PL you're just being difficult. Your statement has absolutely nothing to back it up.
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We can't empirically prove resurrections, the "creation" of man, people turning into pillars of salt, worldwide floods, divine revelation, etc.
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You could empirically prove a resurrection if it happened right in front of you right now. Guy's dead and then he's alive. Simple observation. What you probably couldn't do, if the resurrection was actually done by God or whatever, is explain how it happened naturalistically, without appealing to a supernatural cause. But to infer that that means miracles are invalid is to assume that only the natural world exists -- an assertion you can't possibly prove scientifically, yet ironically the one on which your entire worldview is built.
If you're referring to the specific resurrection of Jesus, that can't be proved today through pure physical science, seeing as it was allegedly about two thousand years ago and pretty much any relevant physical evidence would be long gone by now, but circumstantial evidence from a number of other disciplines is enough for many well-respected scientists and intellectuals to at least consider it not a wholly unreasonable possibility, and certainly any scientist with any integrity would object to your bald categorical assertion, currently backed up by absolutely no evidence, that Christianity cannot possibly be true. At best, you can say it is unscientific -- but what does that mean?
To say that science disproves Christianity, while perhaps somewhat accurate, is at best misleading and dishonest. Science cannot deal with the supernatural -- it is designed to assume that only the natural exists. When you say "Science disproves Christianity," it sounds to the untrained ear like you are saying that it can be conclusively proven that Christianity is false. In reality, all you can really be saying is that the supernatural cannot fit into a system designed specifically not to let it fit in. Until you can give good reason, outside of science, to believe that the supernatural does not exist, you're merely pointing out the difference between two mindsets, unable to actually say that one is better than the other.
As a side note -- one that's still mostly a personal notion, not fully developed into a complete thought -- who says the natural can't be supernatural? I was watching a show on the History Channel or something a while ago that suggested that the parting of the Red Sea wasn't a magical lifting of the water into walls on either side, but rather a volcano that happened to erupt in just the right place at just the right time to create a landbridge which would last just long enough for all the Israelites to cross. Wouldn't that be even more amazing? For an omnipotent deity, just lifting up the water right there would be nothing, but if instead He set the tectonic plates in motion however many thousands or millions or billions of years ago just right so that a perfectly-sized volcano would be formed at the exact minute it was needed, all of it planned out long beforehand, maybe that's an even greater display of power and wisdom. Why should God have to always work against the very system He created in order to work miracles?
Not that any of that has anything to do with time, of course.
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CE7 is right: you can't disprove the supernatural because it is by definition stuff that somehow magically exists in spite of the normal rules of reality. But why the HECK would you believe in it in the first place?
Choice A) There was a volcano, because some tectonic plates moved
Choice B) There was a volcano, because some tectonic plates moved BECAUSE A MYSTERIOUS BEING SET IT IN MOTION A BILLION YEARS AGO.
Why the flying dukar would you pick B as the reason for the volcano? It's just the same as what we actually know, except with some un-provable, un-dis-provable stuff slapped on.
I guess you'd choose the strange choice B if you already believed in religion and needed to defend it. Why would you already believe in a religion? Well, a couple possibilities:
- Thousands of years ago, when man had no means to understand basically anything about how the world actually worked or was formed or what those lights in the sky were, people just made reasons up and believed them. Okay, fine for them, whatever. Problem is: they kept writing it down and teaching it to their kids and when we did eventually figure out what the heck was going on, people refused to stop believing the old bunk explanations!
- There is no "meaning" to life; it just arbitrarily happens. People can't stand believing this, so they make up mystical validations for their existance. Or far more likely, accept pre-made mystical validations made up long ago. Feels so good!
- It totally sucks to die. You don't get to experience anything ever again. People can't stand believing this, so they make up mystical afterlives to look forward to. Or far more likely, accept pre-made mystical afterlives made up long ago to look forward to. Feels so good!
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You missed one.
-There is just no way that something can come from nothing. There's no getting around that. So when a guy heard a voice from the sky (although who knows where God actually speaks from) calling him by name, he thinks "Well this would explain a lot. Better write it down so future generations aren't as confused as I am." Factor in a few (and by "a few" I mean "a lot") miracles that in many cases, were witnessed by a lot of people and recorded (not just made up out of the blue, recorded as history; look at the tone of the Bible compared to fictional works of the day; it's written as a historical account, not a work of fiction), the most famous example of which would be the resurrection of Jesus. Do you think these witnesses were lying? Do you think they were stupid (I love how you think that because the people in ancient times had less scientific knowledge, they were any less smart)? Do you honestly think that the apostles - every single one of them, eventually - would have given their lives and deaths to defend a lie?
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-There is just no way that something can come from nothing.
Don't Christians believe that? That, in essence, god took nothing and made something?
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The implication being that it came from God, not nothing. Perhaps I should have phrased it: "Nothing cannot become something of its own accord."
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There's still the problem of where God came from.
There are other problems too, like a crowd's willingness to believe stuff in a fit of hysteria (which is what supernatural things get explained as a lot)
Turtlekid, what fictional works of the day? The Bible is one of the very few written documents surviving at all from the era 4000-2000 years ago and like the only other ones are religious texts too.
Lizard Dude doesn't really seem to take into account the theory that I think best explains the origin of a lot of religions, which is that it was at the time a sort of "science" - people had no clue what caused weather, natural disasters, etc. and they tried to correlate natural occurrences with the things they did, and tried to work out a system to make the natural world do what they wanted, so they'd sacrifice some stuff and people for good weather, crops, etc. In hopes that whatever they thought was controlling the weather and earthquakes and floods would do what they wanted. The system just got more complex and then after a while it became more of a social system/means of controlling people instead of a pseudoscientific attempt to govern the natural world.
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There's still the problem of where God came from.
Why does God need to come from somewhere if he's infinite, as is suggested by Christian doctrine? Also, the Cause of all things cannot have a cause, or He's not the Cause of all things.
Turtlekid, what fictional works of the day? The Bible is one of the very few written documents surviving at all from the era 4000-2000 years ago and like the only other ones are religious texts too.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, for one (although that might well be based partly in truth, from my limited understanding of it). In any case, my original point was that the attention to detail does not indicate that the Bible is a work of fiction. What fictional work would bother to include all those statistics and numbers and specifics?
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The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Book of Genesis may well have come from the same story, even. Also Gilgamesh is way older than the Bible. (So I'm not counting it as "of the day".)
Also: Statistics? Anyway, I don't know what fiction you read that doesn't have details. Maybe fanfiction or something has polluted your mind.
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In reality, all you can really be saying is that the supernatural cannot fit into a system designed specifically not to let it fit in.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.guim.co.uk%2Fsys-images%2FBooks%2FPix%2Fpictures%2F2009%2F11%2F27%2F1259319964551%2FCS-Lewis-001.jpg&hash=b9e8bea09c55cdb64d1ee5bf9d888c57)
Lewis approves.
If God could be proven through science, He would be disproven: Since science's reach is limited to that within the universe, God would thus be merely a temporal being, subject to the laws of our reality. No such temporal entity could possibly be the God of Creation if it dwells within Creation, rendering any "scientific" approach to the question of God useless.
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Weegee, with that logic we can "prove" just about anything. Pink unicorns, talking gelatin, flying monkeys, etc.
Why doesn't God communicate with us directly? The Bible contradicts itself and is highly confusing. In Leviticus, it asks us to stone gays. Just saying.
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Time obviously exists, because without time, then literally nothing would happen. We'd all still be babies, some of us not even that.
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Weegee, with that logic we can "prove" just about anything. Pink unicorns, talking gelatin, flying monkeys, etc.
No. Those would all fall within the realm of the tangible, observable world. In contrast, God must transcend His own creation in order to fulfill the role He has.
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Well, what if a pink unicorn created the universe? What if Allah created the universe? What if the Hindu god created the universe? What if Buddha created the universe? Which god is the right god?
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(research Buddhism please)
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You religious people will find something....
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi215.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fcc280%2FTactless_Ninja%2FNo%2520U%2F%5Bwtd%5Dman_sloth.png&hash=0dce26e7593c952bbd96f3a3254f66b3)
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(research Buddhism please)
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Good gravy, I was making a point. I know that Buddhists don't assert that Buddha created the universe. I was a religion major for two years for Pete's sake.
I'm basically saying that believing that the god of Christianity created the universe is just as rational as believing that a pink unicorn did. Or Buddha. Or Dwight Eisenhower. Or a llama.
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Or a llama.
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Frobbiecook.net%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F03%2Farceus-278x300.png&hash=700a6b89d5cec238b2a96ba23ee73955)
Yeah, this discussion has become a game of tennis between two brick walls.
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You started (http://themushroomkingdom.net/board/index.php?topic=12107.msg572508#msg572508) it.
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I'll admit partial responsibility, but other posts (http://themushroomkingdom.net/board/index.php?topic=12107.msg572395#msg572395) also shifted the focus to an extent.
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Yes. But we all know where the true evil (http://themushroomkingdom.net/board/index.php?topic=12107.msg572374#msg572374) lies.
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Whatsoever could you possibly mean? That was a meaningful, intelligent contribution to this vivacious discussion.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg709.imageshack.us%2Fimg709%2F8739%2Fmonkeysmilej.jpg&hash=606b427b5da07f5fe7dd02c629a1a55a)
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I'm basically saying that believing that the god of Christianity created the universe is just as rational as believing that a pink unicorn did. Or Buddha. Or Dwight Eisenhower. Or a llama.
Not really, since Yahweh (along with some other religions' gods) is described as having a lot of the characteristics you'd expect from a universe-creator -- He is said to transcend time ("Before Abraham was, I am" - John 8:58), space ("Can a man hide himself so I do not see him? Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?" - Jeremiah 23:24), and matter ("God is spirit" - John 4:24, "a spirit does not have flesh and bones" - Luke 24:39; "who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see" - 1 Timothy 6:16). Whether there's empirical evidence is one thing, but the idea of the universe being created by an infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, spacetime-transcending deity like the one described in the Bible certainly makes more rational sense than a mortal llama, inanimate teapot, or dead president doing it. A unicorn maybe, since they at least have some magical powers, but still.
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No, not a mortal llama. An omnipotent llama.
infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, spacetime-transcending deity
These qualities are undermined by something called the Euthyphro dilemma:
Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God? If it's the former, then morality is arbitrary. If it's the latter, then nothing without god's commands would be right or wrong. We know for a fact, however, that we don't need god's commands to know that stoning gays (which god does command in Leviticus) is morally wrong.
One could take the Thomas Aquinas approach and say that goodness is a part of god's nature, but this still raises the question: why is he good?
having a lot of the characteristics you'd expect from a universe-creator
You automatically assume that these traits define a universe-creator, yet said traits were conceived by natural beings. I thought you said that any attempts by something natural to explain something supernatural would ultimately fail. Am I wrong?
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Is what is morally good commanded by God because it is morally good, or is it morally good because it is commanded by God? If it's the former, then morality is arbitrary. If it's the latter, then nothing without god's commands would be right or wrong. We know for a fact, however, that we don't need god's commands to know that stoning gays (which god does command in Leviticus) is morally wrong.
No, the latter is right. What morality do you think exists without God? Why is stoning gays wrong? And before someone misconstrues that question as saying that it's okay to kill gay people, let me expound. Why is anything morally right or wrong without a standard to judge it by?
How about an example. You have a homosexual homeless person out on the street. He's obviously contributing nothing to society; he's neither reproducing, thereby ensuring the continued existence of his race; nor is he working to better life for himself or anyone around him. Is it wrong to kill him? It's not like anyone would miss him, right? It's not like society needs him, right?
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How about an example. You have a homosexual homeless person out on the street. He's obviously contributing nothing to society; he's neither reproducing, thereby ensuring the continued existence of his race; nor is he working to better life for himself or anyone around him. Is it wrong to kill him? It's not like anyone would miss him, right? It's not like society needs him, right?
So what's stopping you?
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That's not what I asked. I asked why is it morally wrong? Not whether it contributes to society. In my example, the person is a drain on resources; taking from the system without giving back. So why would it be immoral to kill him? It doesn't damage society at all; rather, it helps society. Similarly, is euthanasia wrong? In most cases, euthanasia would be applied to people that are, like the man in the aforementioned example, a drain on resources, either because of age or birth defects. Would it be morally wrong to kill them if it doesn't harm society?
Or: why is stealing wrong? After all, it's not actually harming the economy of a society as a whole; just... if you'll excuse the oft-uttered phrase, redistributing the wealth? Why does one man have any more right to riches than another man?
The speaker in that video would like to believe that morals arose from conventions designed to propagate civilization, but that belief cannot possibly apply to all morals, as I said above.
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It would be morally wrong to kill said person if he didn't want to die.
It would be morally right to kill said person if he did want to die.
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You haven't answered my original question. That is, what makes an action inherently right or wrong? What should it matter if the guy doesn't want to die? If he's a drain on society, then he needs to die for the greater good. And if he doesn't understand that, tough darts.
Or is there some other reason it would be wrong? Is there some sort of sacredness about life that shouldn't be violated on a whim?
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What should it matter if the guy doesn't want to die? If he's a drain on society, then he needs to die for the greater good. And if he doesn't understand that, tough darts.
Utilitarianism is a dead morality. No one sane suggests killing others for the greater good anymore.
What makes an action inherently right or wrong? Look up Kant's categorical imperative. It's basically the golden rule for moral absolutists.
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That may make an action more or less advisable from a practical standpoint, but it has nothing to do with whether it's moral or not.
Consider: I murder someone in cold blood. No one sees me, and this person is someone that will not be missed for a long time, if at all - the perfect crime, if you will. Is my action morally wrong? It broke the golden rule, but to imply that there will be some sort of consequence would be to imply a supernatural aspect, or "karma," about morals. If there are still consequences, where do they come from (for we've already established that no one on earth knew of the act; nor will they ever learn of it)?
It comes down to whether Yahweh, the God of the Bible, is the One who initiated morality, or just another god of another religion; but I rather thought the point you were trying to make was that there is nothing supernatural about morality. If there aren't consequences, then why is such an action wrong?
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I never said there were consequences.
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Then what motivation do I have to follow the Golden Rule?
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Because it's the right thing to do.
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Wouldn't you feel a bit.. odd at committing such an act? I mean sure, nobody would find out (hypothetically), but it would weigh on your conscience forever, until you confessed to it or died.
(sorry to just jump in like that)
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Sure, it would weigh on me. Let me say once and for all that I'm not actually advocating murder or theft. I'm trying to make the point that these actions cannot be inherently wrong from a moral standpoint unless there's a moral standard (God).
Also, it's refreshing to see someone new offer his opinion on the matter. YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY, THE MORE THE ME--erm, perhaps now isn't the time.
Because it's the right thing to do.
Why? Who says? What makes it right? It seems that you want accountability without a standard to decide who should be held accountable.
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Why? Who says? What makes it right?
We are.
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What makes an action inherently right or wrong? Look up Kant's categorical imperative. It's basically the golden rule for moral absolutists.
So, are you calling yourself a "moral absolutist"? If so, why should we humans be the measure of moralism? Why is it then inherently wrong to kill someone against their will? If you call doing so wrong but Crazy Bill calls it right, who's to say that your judgement is more valid than Bill's?
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I still don't understand why Turtlekid thinks that he can be an evil jerk if no one's looking. And I also don't get why he doesn't understand the principle of the golden rule. I mean, do you want to be robbed? Do you want to be killed? No? Then why would you do it to someone else?
The "moral standard" is perfectly maintained by the golden rule.
If he's a drain on society, then he needs to die for the greater good.
Dude, you are making this $#*@ up. No one else thinks that way. You either have such a skewed understanding of society as to be completely unrecognizable, or you are just trying to create situations that you think help your argument.
I can see that your mind is twisted though by your repeated mention of "consequences". Why do you only want to do the right thing if it gets you into heaven? Why not do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do? Someone truly "moral" wouldn't be doing things simply to be rewarded later. That's completely missing the point and I think God would be very disappointed in you.
To recap: Consequences don't make something right or wrong! They are simply a byproduct of your actions. Thus I ask you again, would it be wrong to kill you if I felt like it and I knew no one would know or care? Of course. Even if you have the mentality of a totally backwards and sickening troll. I don't want to be killed and think it would be wrong to be killed, so logically I must conclude that other people don't want to be killed either.
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He's just taking the argument to its logical extreme. Obviously he doesn't think that way, but there are inevitably some who do.
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I still don't understand why Turtlekid thinks that he can be an evil jerk if no one's looking. And I also don't get why he doesn't understand the principle of the golden rule. I mean, do you want to be robbed? Do you want to be killed? No? Then why would you do it to someone else?
Because I can do it without consequences. If no one sees me or ever finds out, and if there are no consequences, why the heck shouldn't I live however I want? After all, there's no Heaven or Hell, so I should just live for the experiences in the here and now; and I'm not going to be pinned down by silly old rules that other people live by. If other people want to restrict themselves with foolish morals, that's their choice.
The "moral standard" is perfectly maintained by the golden rule.
More like "expressed by the Golden Rule," but whatever.
Dude, you are making this $#*@ up. No one else thinks that way. You either have such a skewed understanding of society as to be completely unrecognizable, or you are just trying to create situations that you think help your argument.
Lots of people think that way. They're called criminals, and they're the ones living right if there's no God.
I can see that your mind is twisted though by your repeated mention of "consequences". Why do you only want to do the right thing if it gets you into heaven? Why not do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do? Someone truly "moral" wouldn't be doing things simply to be rewarded later. That's completely missing the point and I think God would be very disappointed in you.
Seriously, does no one understand that I really do not think in terms of consequences? I don't do the right thing "to get into Heaven." Any consistent atheist, on the other hand, has no reason to respect any moral rules.
To recap: Consequences don't make something right or wrong! They are simply a byproduct of your actions. Thus I ask you again, would it be wrong to kill you if I felt like it and I knew no one would know or care? Of course. Even if you have the mentality of a totally backwards and sickening troll. I don't want to be killed and think it would be wrong to be killed, so logically I must conclude that other people don't want to be killed either.
Screw what other people want. If there's only one life to live; if this is it; if this is all you get, then you can't afford to consider what everyone else wants. You've gotta live for you and only for you. If there's no one to establish a moral code, how can you say that it's morally wrong to kill me in cold blood? You can't. What's to say someone's desire to not be killed is more valid than my desire to kill them?
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So, are you calling yourself a "moral absolutist"?
No, I am not a moral absolutist. I was pointing Turtlekid1 into the direction of a better morality than Christianity because he is a moral absolutist.
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Okay I am really confused by Turtlekid now. Just thought I'd let everyone know. He is totally insane.
(Just because you claim that someone thinks a certain way does not mean they do; I mean how could you ever claim to know in the first place? I say again, your self-serving arguments are paper-thin and totally illogical.)
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Just because you claim that someone thinks a certain way does not mean they do
True, although countless individuals, namely
criminals
, have proven themselves to act this way. If the entire world came to glorify and endorse needless bloodshed, would it still be wrong? Relativists think by consensus, after all.
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Any consistent atheist, on the other hand, has no reason to respect any moral rules.
Um...how about no? I'm an atheist and I respect the golden rule because it's the right thing to do. Who says that the lack of a supernatural being constitutes a lack of morals?
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How many time must I ask: WHY is it the right thing to do? Who are you or any human to determine what is and is not moral?
This is just going in circles.
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Yeah, because you keep making things up.
I and many others already stated why. But you seem to insist that those repeated explanations don't exist.
Relativists think by consensus, after all.
?????
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WHY is it the right thing to do?
And I keep answering you! JUST BECAUSE IT IS.
Who are you or any human to determine what is and is not moral?
Who is God to determine what is moral?
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And I keep answering you! JUST BECAUSE IT IS.
That's a surprisingly irrational answer from someone who makes a point to be rational.
Who is God to determine what is moral?
Um, if an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being who created everything, knows everything, and is everywhere says something is moral, are you going to question that? God doesn't just determine morality, He defines it.
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That's a surprisingly irrational answer from someone who makes a point to be rational.
Seems perfectly rational to me. We shouldn't kill people because it's wrong. There is no other reason.
That's a surprisingly irrational answer from someone who makes a point to be rational.
Um, if an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Being who created everything, knows everything, and is everywhere says something is moral, are you going to question that?
Absolutely. God wants us to stone gays. He killed 2,000,000+ in the Bible. Of course I'm going to question him.
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Seems perfectly rational to me. We shouldn't kill people because it's wrong. There is no other reason.
So, you possess absolute control over what's right and wrong for everybody. Why isn't Crazy Bill correct for thinking the opposite?
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Crazy Bill is subjectively right and objectively wrong.
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Who is God to determine what is moral?
If the guy who made the place can't set the rules for it, why can you?
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Because our rules are better. Stoning gays, killing 2,000,000+, ordering women to worship men...yeah, God sounds like a swell guy.
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If the guy who made the place can't set the rules for it, why can you?
For starters, at least PaperLuigi isn't ****ING FICTIONAL
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Because our rules are better. Stoning gays, killing 2,000,000+, ordering women to worship men...yeah, God sounds like a swell guy.
Whoa whoa, hold up there champ. I've skimmed the good book and done my small share of reading, and I never once heard of God Himself telling dudes that all the above stuff is kosher, as it were. Rather, all I saw were dudes hearing some vague stuff (whether divine or not), and then interpreting them as rules that happen to fall square in line with their existing hatred and prejudices. Now, I'm not saying God is real or not, because I can't say either way. But riddle me this:
Guys pre-God were going around, taking multiple wives and slapping them around, stoning people who were different, raping, pillaging, killing two million folks, and ordering women to worship men just fine. Then one day a big bearded stoner dude came down from a mountain and said that God was pretty much down with all that as long as they did it in His name. Now, assuming God doesn't exist, then who was around to make up those rules? And the rules after those?
Think before you say whose rules are better.
Now can we all shut the hell up and go back to talking about either time or Dorf?
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For starters, at least PaperLuigi isn't ****ING FICTIONAL
Artistic interpretation of LD's expression:
(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi156.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Ft17%2Fjeremyqueen%2FMickeyRage.jpg&hash=aba742cd850a4cac1853ea4ce7ce6dc0)
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Glorb's post.
Trolling, but God really did kill 2,000,000+ in the Bible:
http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/rook_hawkins/biblical_errancy/3582
EDIT: Come on Weegee, don't resort to slander. Either contribute to the debate or don't post at all.
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My post was no worse the LD's.
None of those people would have died if they had just followed God.
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I'm gonna agree with Weegee here. God pretty much told them beforehand not to **** Him off. And they did anyway. He warned them there would be consequences, and there were. Also, I'm pretty sure Satan, by means of torturing people for all eternity in the depths of Hell, has done more gruesome things than kill people who were deliberately disobeying and knew it.
Also: again, God ultimately decides the good. Who is any human to tell Him what's right and what's not? To do so would be to declare oneself a god.
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Because our rules are better. Stoning gays, killing 2,000,000+, ordering women to worship men...yeah, God sounds like a swell guy.
The law of Moses was incredibly progressive for its time. God was working within the context of ancient Mesopotamia. For example, the law demanding that any man who sleeps with an unmarried woman (which was often rape) must marry her may seem unfair, demeaning, and even barbaric to modern society, but in a society where the only way a woman could get by was through her husband, and no man wanted to marry a non-virgin, it was the most merciful thing that could be done for her until society as a whole changed drastically. Blindly comparing Leviticus to modern times without looking at it in a historical and cultural context, whether it's a Christian trying to apply every law to today or a skeptic trying to show how evil God is, is irresponsible. The former assumes that ancient Mesopotamian culture is a perfect ideal which must be applied to everyone; the latter assumes the same about modern Western culture. Both are transcended by "love God, love your neighbor."
However, the more fundamental issue at hand, and the one that everyone except Turtlekid and Weegee has been pretending doesn't exist for like three pages now, is this: By whose standards are your rules better? WHY are they better? Most basically, what does "better" even mean? Is there some universal ought-ness to it (if so, where does your authority come from?), or is it just personal preference (if so, why are we arguing about it like it matters?)?
Side note: If you believe that God doesn't exist and the Bible was written by humans, then you obviously believe that humans can screw up really bad when making moral laws (although "screwing up" implies that there's some higher standard, whose origin you don't seem to be able to account for, against which moral laws are compared). How can you ensure your rules are better, when you're just as human as they were?
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I'm gonna agree with Weegee here. God pretty much told them beforehand not to **** Him off. And they did anyway. He warned them there would be consequences, and there were.
So why kill them as a form of punishment? If I had an unruly daughter, I wouldn't kill her, I'd put her in time out or show her the right way.
I'm pretty sure Satan, by means of torturing people for all eternity in the depths of Hell, has done more gruesome things than kill people who were deliberately disobeying and knew it.
Why doesn't God just get rid of Satan? He's an accomplice to evil.
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By whose standards are your rules better? WHY are they better? Most basically, what does "better" even mean? Is there some universal ought-ness to it (if so, where does your authority come from?), or is it just personal preference (if so, why are we arguing about it like it matters?)?
By whose standards are God's rules better? Why are they better? Where does God's authority come from?
How can you ensure your rules are better, when you're just as human as they were?
Scientific progress basically.
EDIT: I wasn't paying attention and accidentally posted twice. My bad.
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By whose standards are God's rules better? Why are they better? Where does God's authority come from?
For one thing, He created everything; He's going to have the final word on what's right and what's wrong within His creation. For another, He knows everything, including what's good and what's evil.
Scientific progress basically.
Science has nothing to do with morality. Science is for hypothesizing about and experimenting with the physical world of God's creation in order to learn more about it. Morality is in no way physical. Also, intelligence and scientific progress are two different things.
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The fact that we have progressed scientifically makes our morals better than past morals.
For one thing, He created everything; He's going to have the final word on what's right and what's wrong within His creation. For another, He knows everything, including what's good and what's evil.
What evidence do you have to suggest that a god "created" everything? Also, you're suggesting that goodness is independent of god in that second sentence.
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Also, you're suggesting that goodness is independent of god in that second sentence.
You're right, that was sloppily worded. My point was that no human should presume to know better than an omniscient God about something.
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How the crap did we go from discussing how time works to arguing about God?!
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The fact that we have progressed scientifically makes our morals better than past morals.
ಠ_ಠ
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According to the Bible, the cure for leprosy involves incantations and the blood of a bird.
According to science, the cure for leprosy involves antibiotics that kill the bacteria responsible for the disease.
Guess which one's the ethical procedure?
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According to the Bible, the cure for leprosy involves incantations and the blood of a bird.
Lol, misinterpretation of Scripture.
Couple of problems with that statement. First of all, there were no incantations; the priest simply declared the man ceremonially clean, which brings me to my next point: this wasn't regarded as a cure for leprosy. Instead, it was a sacrificial ceremony that was meant to declare a person cleansed after he no longer had the disease ("leprosy" could actually refer to any infectious disease of the skin the way it's used in that context).
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What the hell happened that turned PL 180 degrees into a super-militant atheist?
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.godlessgirl.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F06%2F85.jpg&hash=760da5e3341d0b38cc165b9316d788c0)
EDIT: College happened, Glorb.
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(https://themushroomkingdom.net/board/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg269.imageshack.us%2Fimg269%2F2231%2Fmilitants.png&hash=6a705177a28cb89b587745026b05c6d0)
Fixed.
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The appeal to authority is a fallacy of defective induction and does NOTHING to help your argument. My cartoon was meant to be humorous.
Atheist using the appeal to authority: "Stalin also rejected Darwin's theory and suppressed research regarding evolution. Let's not forget that Hitler was a Roman Catholic, Idi Amin Dada was Islamic, etc."
Christian using the appeal to authority: "Stalin was an atheist, Pol Pot was an atheist, etc."
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I'm not trying to "appeal to authority," merely point out that the definition of "militant" in the original cartoon is incorrect. The atheist pictured may be vehement, or even extreme, but "militant" implies violence.
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Perhaps the cartoon was referring to the fact that many Christians label peaceful yet vocal atheists as militant.
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“I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image.”
~Stephen Hawking
And the man is totally right. A computer virus is as alive and has as much free will as we do.
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LD, do you have a per-month quota on how many times you must remind us all that humans have no free will?
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Well, one correct parallel drawn by Hawking's statement is that both we and viruses were designed by higher powers.
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A few days ago, the latest Scientific American came in at work and smack dab on the cover it said, "Does TIME really exist?"
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Care to summarize their stance?
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I read it, and the title was misleading. They're just saying you should stop subscribing to TIME magazine since it's, quote, "not even real at all and our magazine is totally better than this thing that doesn't even exist". There was no evidence to support the claim. Very disappointing.
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I know I'll regret bumping this, but...
One way in which I suppose Shyguy92's argument makes sense is that time can't truly be measured, gauged, observed, or followed. A clock's hands merely circle over arbitrary digits, at a pace set to correspond with natural cycles. Increments of "time" (minutes, days, years...) are based on Earth's physical position in relation to the sun, rather than on time itself. Given this, what, if anything, would happen if time ceased to exist? If time has no discernible presence, how are we to tell if it has stopped, or even if it ever existed to begin with?
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Except it does have discernible presence. Take for instance the GPS satellites which have to have their clocks reset every so often because time runs a tiny bit faster out in the microgravity above Earth, and if they didn't reset their clocks then their map projections would become inaccurate and stuff.
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Time could beat the [dukar] out of space.