Deep Time, Naturalism and Atheism (YECs need not apply)

[schemanista]

I think it was an undergrad Geology course which finally did me in. I was raised by religiously-indifferent parents, baptized, indoctrinated, and confirmed in High Anglicanism but attended a Catholic High School. Despite all of this exposure, I can't ever remember believing in any of it. A confluence of several events knocked me firmly into agnosticism: I read Zen in the Martial Arts and started meditating, I took a mandatory grade 11 religious studies survey course, and the Minister of our church was reassigned elsewhere, we didn't like the new guy and as a family just stopped going to church. Though I kept a low profile it was amusing to be a heretic awash in a sea of believers, although I now realize that my fellow students seemed to be experiencing cultural Catholocism, rather than genuine spiritual Catholocism. But the teachers seemed gung ho, so it became hard to figure out what was going on.

Still, it was a couple of lectures into "Geology and the Environment", before something went "click". Though I didn't read it until two weeks ago, John McPhee's Basin and Range addresses the same sense of perspective as I zoomed out of my local time scale and kept zooming, and zooming until the geological ages started to become discernable.

Here's how McPhee tries to convey it:
"With your arms spread wide…to represent all time on earth, look at one hand with its line of life. The Cambrian begins in the wrist, and the Permian extinction is at the outer end of the palm. All of the Cenozoic is in a fingerprint, and in a single stroke with a medium-grained nail file you could eradicate human history." [1]
From that perspective, an observer cannot even see the last ten thousand years since the birth of civilization, never mind the last two thousand in which Christianity has existed. Now I don't know about anyone else, but my response to that is visceral. If you try the experiment yourself, and you see the entire period described by the Bible as an indiscernable mingling of the dust of two million years, does it change your perspective at all? I mean Christianity, Hinduism, Islam... they all vanish at this scale.

Does a personal God still seem plausible?

[1]McPhee, John, Basin and Range, Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, New York (1981) p. 118.

[StillSurviving]

If people are still around in a trillion years, then they will look backwards on your analogy and think about how they were created only 5 billion years after the universe, which would seem like the blink of an eye.

"There's always a bigger fish." Qui-Gon

[schemanista]

If people are still around in a trillion years, then they will look backwards on your analogy and think about how they were created only 5 billion years after the universe, which would seem like the blink of an eye.
Only part marks. Relate this to the fallacy in religious thinking. Show all your work.

"There's always a bigger fish." Qui-Gon
- 3 points for quoting anything written by George Lucas.

Yes, I'm an anti-Star Wars snob, but hey, my quiz, my rules.

[Philboid Studge]

- 3 points for quoting anything written by George Lucas.
Uh oh.

[schemanista]

- 3 points for quoting anything written by George Lucas.
Uh oh.
Sigs don't count. It's not like your .sig is intended as supporting evidence for your position in an argument.

[Philboid Studge]

- 3 points for quoting anything written by George Lucas.
Uh oh.
Sigs don't count. It's not like your .sig is intended as supporting evidence for your position in an argument.
Well, in a way it was (almost). I tacked it on to tweak the Objectivists in another thread. But I think it might be too late for Anakin (i.e., VoR); the Dark Side has quite a grip on him.

I'm with you on Star Wars: yawn. At least anything released in the last 20 years ...

[StillSurviving]

If people are still around in a trillion years, then they will look backwards on your analogy and think about how they were created only 5 billion years after the universe, which would seem like the blink of an eye.
Only part marks. Relate this to the fallacy in religious thinking. Show all your work.

"There's always a bigger fish." Qui-Gon
- 3 points for quoting anything written by George Lucas.

Yes, I'm an anti-Star Wars snob, but hey, my quiz, my rules.
How many points do you lose for quoting someone qouting GL?

I don't see why I should lose any points, anyway:
Your post was about looking at things in perspective. I supplied another perspective for looking at the same thing that had the opposite effect as the one you suggested, and represented a plausible line of thinking for a theist. I also supplied an appropriate quote comparing my suggested perspective to yours. Remember, "You'll find many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" -Obi Wan

[schemanista]

How many points do you lose for quoting someone qouting GL?
My quiz, my rules. ;)

I don't see why I should lose any points, anyway:
Your post was about looking at things in perspective. I supplied another perspective for looking at the same thing that had the opposite effect as the one you suggested, and represented a plausible line of thinking for a theist.
SS, I honestly didn't get that. I think you blew it when you injected the word trillion in there. Maybe you've never read McPhee's book but the entire point behind his Deep Time metaphor is that human beings have no real concept of geologic time. I'm arguing that the Christian religious mind has even less perspective since all of their attention is focussed not only on one one-thousandth of the amount of time which modern humans have been on this planet but also on the imaginary manana of Christ's return.

I wondered if anyone could still believe in a personal god if they took a moment to truly contemplate that their own lifetime was on a subatomic scale compared to the age of this planet. Yet this is the span of time that God supposedly meant as the point of the exercise.

I also supplied an appropriate quote comparing my suggested perspective to yours.
You responded with a time period which is 66.6 times as long as the universe has even existed, and fully 100 times longer than the expected life time of our sun. And you conjectured that humans might still be around to contemplate silly things like religion 925 billion years after our sun burns out.

Then you quoted Star Wars.

You know, the space opera which plagiarized Kurosawa based on a totally fucked misreading of Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, that takes place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." but features anatomically-modern human beings speaking modern American English, that has space ships which bank when they maneuver in vacuum, and a mystic order of "Knights" who can do wacky shit only through the power of The Force which permeates all living things...things...things...things...

Sorry buddy. I'm sure you thought you were making a point but from my perspective you totally fried my bullshit meters.

Remember, "You'll find many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" -Obi Wan
Whatever padawan. Next time search your intellect instead of your feelings. This isn't the thread you're looking for. Move on...

[whoneedscience]

Whatever padawan. Next time search your intellect instead of your feelings. This isn't the thread you're looking for. Move on...
that'll be -3 for making a star wars reference, -5 for attempting to be funny, and -15 for messing with star wars in the first place.:P

[schemanista]

Whatever padawan. Next time search your intellect instead of your feelings. This isn't the thread you're looking for. Move on...
that'll be -3 for making a star wars reference, -5 for attempting to be funny, and -15 for messing with star wars in the first place.:P
+15 unintentional irony points for suggesting on an atheist web board that any subject is too sacred to "mess with".

[Erik]

As the child of a geologist, it was pretty hard for me to avoid this conclusion a long time ago. Saying that God had a purpose to structuring things this way is to render the word "purpose" meaningless. The result is that there is no discernible difference between the believer's tale and the purposeless universe. If the believer then complains that the non-believer is committing the fallacy of ascribing human definitions of words to the actions of the supreme being, then the believer is an unrelenting hypocrite, because the believer readily ascribes many human characteristics to that deity, and is only too happy to use words with understood meanings to illustrate. So either god doesn't exist, or god is an undefinable entity. Either way, the personal god cannot exist.

The standard Christian response that to God, a thousand years is as a day, just avoids the question. The point to me always was that the atheist's conclusion is eminently reasonable, leaving the believer only with the argument (if that's the right word) that a rational person may nevertheless come to a belief in god through faith. But absent any showing that faith beliefs are actually reliable, a tough task indeed after centuries of proof to the contrary, this argument goes nowhere. I think maybe Mark Twain said something similar, about how it was plainly obvious that the Eiffel Tower was built solely for the purpose of supporting the very last coat of paint at the very top.

In addition to the deep time argument, there are two similar arguments from evolution. First, believers have to admit that their concepts of the deity they believe in come from religious texts. But I know of no major religious text that has adequately incorporated evolution, and certainly not prior to 1859. Since evolution is a fundamental fact of life on this planet, the texts that are supposedly the deity's revelations to mankind about the nature of the universe should have included this central fact. As they did not, they are plainly false. There is therefore no reliable evidence for the personal god, and it is reasonable to conclude it does not exist.

Second, since it is now obvious that humans evolved from primate ancestors, and since many believers think that only human beings have souls that are capable of salvation, it is a reasonable question to ask when did primates first get souls. Leaving aside for the moment the crumbled edifice of the mind-body dichotomy, it becomes apparent that the answer to the question is impossible to determine; any attempts to do so would merely be blind speculation, and would once again inject our own prejudices into an answer that should have been obvious if the prominent religious texts of the world were in fact inspired by a deity. Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude they were not, and that the personal god doesn't exist.

[StillSurviving]

How many points do you lose for quoting someone qouting GL?
My quiz, my rules. ;)

I don't see why I should lose any points, anyway:
Your post was about looking at things in perspective. I supplied another perspective for looking at the same thing that had the opposite effect as the one you suggested, and represented a plausible line of thinking for a theist.
SS, I honestly didn't get that. I think you blew it when you injected the word trillion in there. Maybe you've never read McPhee's book but the entire point behind his Deep Time metaphor is that human beings have no real concept of geologic time. I'm arguing that the Christian religious mind has even less perspective since all of their attention is focussed not only on one one-thousandth of the amount of time which modern humans have been on this planet but also on the imaginary manana of Christ's return.

I wondered if anyone could still believe in a personal god if they took a moment to truly contemplate that their own lifetime was on a subatomic scale compared to the age of this planet. Yet this is the span of time that God supposedly meant as the point of the exercise.

I also supplied an appropriate quote comparing my suggested perspective to yours.
You responded with a time period which is 66.6 times as long as the universe has even existed, and fully 100 times longer than the expected life time of our sun. And you conjectured that humans might still be around to contemplate silly things like religion 925 billion years after our sun burns out.

Then you quoted Star Wars.

You know, the space opera which plagiarized Kurosawa based on a totally fucked misreading of Campbell's The Hero With A Thousand Faces, that takes place "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." but features anatomically-modern human beings speaking modern American English, that has space ships which bank when they maneuver in vacuum, and a mystic order of "Knights" who can do wacky shit only through the power of The Force which permeates all living things...things...things...things...

Sorry buddy. I'm sure you thought you were making a point but from my perspective you totally fried my bullshit meters.

Remember, "You'll find many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view" -Obi Wan
Whatever padawan. Next time search your intellect instead of your feelings. This isn't the thread you're looking for. Move on...
schemanista, I have been playing until now. You don't understand theists, and you don't understand my posts. What difference does it make if it took 5 billion years for human life to appear if humans are meant (willed by God) to be a permanent fixture in the universe? What difference does it make if our star burns out if we stretch across the universe, and make new homes with new stars? You multiplied the time scale you purport most theists (then specifically Christians, as if those are synonyms) apply to their reality in order to make a point, then you ridiculed me for multiplying yours. You think you've found an interesting perspective for the religious to ponder, but the fact is you haven't. You are the one emotionaly involved in your idea; the one who needs to search your intellect instead of your feelings. The fact is everyone should move along from this thread because there is nothing here. Still, I'll tread where I wish.
"Looks like I'm going nowhere!" -Luke Skywalker

[schemanista]

schemanista, I have been playing until now. You don't understand theists, and you don't understand my posts. What difference does it make if it took 5 billion years for human life to appear if humans are meant (willed by God) to be a permanent fixture in the universe? What difference does it make if our star burns out if we stretch across the universe, and make new homes with new stars? You multiplied the time scale you purport most theists (then specifically Christians, as if those are synonyms) apply to their reality in order to make a point, then you ridiculed me for multiplying yours. You think you've found an interesting perspective for the religious to ponder, but the fact is you haven't. You are the one emotionaly involved in your idea; the one who needs to search your intellect instead of your feelings. The fact is everyone should move along from this thread because there is nothing here. Still, I'll tread where I wish.
"Looks like I'm going nowhere!" -Luke Skywalker
Hey sparky,

You responded to a thread with "naturalism" in its title and quoted Star Wars as if it loaned credence to your position.

You responded to a thread with "naturalism" in its title using an analogy which is ridiculous for reasons I've already detailed.

You cannot infer from context that I am singling out Christianity although my background story and the term "Personal God" were two Star Destroyer-sized clues (and I did not use Christianity and theism synonymously--learn to read you sanctimonious prick).

You tell me that I cannot understand theists (oops, it's you who conflate the two--I didn't even use the word in my original post) because your analogy made the assumption "if humans are meant (willed by God) to be a permanent fixture in the universe" when Christians don't believe that this (physical) universe is eternal and that assumption was explicit in my analogy.

You think, that because you don't think this issue is interesting, then nobody else will find it interesting either, even though you were sufficiently interested to post a response in the first place.

You're saying that I'm the one emotionally involved here as if that's a revelation: of course I'm emotionally involved. What the fuck does the word "visceral" mean in this context?

The fact is, you got pissed off because I jokingly suggested that you move on and you don't like that because you "tread where you wish" and then you suggest that everyone else should "move on" because you say so.

Do I really need to add anything else at this point except "Fuck you"?

[Philboid Studge]

Hey! Keep it down in here, you two! *raps broom on ceiling*


['Break me a fucking give.' ~ Anthony Lane -- heh heh heh]

[schemanista]

As the child of a geologist, it was pretty hard for me to avoid this conclusion a long time ago. Saying that God had a purpose to structuring things this way is to render the word "purpose" meaningless...
Erik, that was excellent. It's not that you're presenting anything startling, but you stated it so succinctly. I had a definite "man I wish I'd written that" moment.

[schemanista]

Hey! Keep it down in here, you two! *raps broom on ceiling*
Sorry Mr. Studge. He started it.

['Break me a fucking give.' ~ Anthony Lane -- heh heh heh]
Read the review (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/articles/050523crci_cinema). It's full of chocolatey Anti-Star Wars goodness.

[Philboid Studge]

Read the review. It's full of chocolatey Anti-Star Wars goodness.
I read it; it's pretty good. (And I saw the movie; it's pretty bad.) It's no small thing when the word 'fuck' makes it into the New Yorker.

[Rhinoqulous]

Here's my favorite quote from the article.

The general opinion of “Revenge of the Sith seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, “The Phantom Menace” and “Attack of the Clones". True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.

:lol:

Rhinoq

[StillSurviving]

schemanista, I have been playing until now. You don't understand theists, and you don't understand my posts. What difference does it make if it took 5 billion years for human life to appear if humans are meant (willed by God) to be a permanent fixture in the universe? What difference does it make if our star burns out if we stretch across the universe, and make new homes with new stars? You multiplied the time scale you purport most theists (then specifically Christians, as if those are synonyms) apply to their reality in order to make a point, then you ridiculed me for multiplying yours. You think you've found an interesting perspective for the religious to ponder, but the fact is you haven't. You are the one emotionaly involved in your idea; the one who needs to search your intellect instead of your feelings. The fact is everyone should move along from this thread because there is nothing here. Still, I'll tread where I wish.
"Looks like I'm going nowhere!" -Luke Skywalker
Hey sparky,

You responded to a thread with "naturalism" in its title and quoted Star Wars as if it loaned credence to your position.

You responded to a thread with "naturalism" in its title using an analogy which is ridiculous for reasons I've already detailed.

You cannot infer from context that I am singling out Christianity although my background story and the term "Personal God" were two Star Destroyer-sized clues (and I did not use Christianity and theism synonymously--learn to read you sanctimonious prick).

You tell me that I cannot understand theists (oops, it's you who conflate the two--I didn't even use the word in my original post) because your analogy made the assumption "if humans are meant (willed by God) to be a permanent fixture in the universe" when Christians don't believe that this (physical) universe is eternal and that assumption was explicit in my analogy.

You think, that because you don't think this issue is interesting, then nobody else will find it interesting either, even though you were sufficiently interested to post a response in the first place.

You're saying that I'm the one emotionally involved here as if that's a revelation: of course I'm emotionally involved. What the fuck does the word "visceral" mean in this context?

The fact is, you got pissed off because I jokingly suggested that you move on and you don't like that because you "tread where you wish" and then you suggest that everyone else should "move on" because you say so.

Do I really need to add anything else at this point except "Fuck you"?
Written history and oral tradition themselves "vanish" on the time scales you suggest we use when looking at religion. So to say that any individual religion vanishes as well really isn't saying anything. I treated your post with the seriousness it deserves, which is very little. That explains the lame ass star wars quotes that I never use in any other thread, and which I use here only because you dislike them so, and because you seem to want to make this personal.

Your original post asked "does a personal God still seem plausible?" which is not Christian specific. You later argued against my broad theistic based response saying:
I'm arguing that the Christian religious mind has even less perspective since all of their attention is focussed not only on one one-thousandth of the amount of time which modern humans have been on this planet but also on the imaginary manana of Christ's return.
So it seems you do have difficulty discerning between theist and Christian, no matter how much you argue otherwise, your posts speak for themselves. You should have asked if the Christian God still seemed plausible. Your mistake.

Even with respect to christians, you haven't presented anything here that is going to shake the foundation of their beliefs. (refer to the first paragraph in this reply)

I will state again my opinion is this topic is not interesting, and I will add that the premise is flawed. My posting here does not contradict that, as my arguments (rudimentary as they were, in response to obviously flawed ideas) started short, requiring very little thought or interest on my part. This changed when schiester made it personal, which of course added nothing to his argument except a distraction in his "quiz". So bravo!

"I must've hit it pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh, kid?" han solo

[schemanista]

Written history and oral tradition themselves "vanish" on the time scales you suggest we use when looking at religion. So to say that any individual religion vanishes as well really isn't saying anything. I treated your post with the seriousness it deserves, which is very little. That explains the lame ass star wars quotes that I never use in any other thread, and which I use here only because you dislike them so, and because you seem to want to make this personal.
I have been getting a little hot under the collar. Sorry. I've already explained why I don't feel that your counter-example does what you insist it does, especially since it was devoid of the context which you've provided in subsequent posts. I concede that you have a point, but I maintain that my premise isn't as flawed as you think it is--partly because I think you're ignoring subtleties which give it a much different "flavour" than what you've been returning to the kitchen.

Your original post asked "does a personal God still seem plausible?" which is not Christian specific. You later argued against my broad theistic based response saying:
I'm arguing that the Christian religious mind has even less perspective since all of their attention is focussed not only on one one-thousandth of the amount of time which modern humans have been on this planet but also on the imaginary manana of Christ's return.
So it seems you do have difficulty discerning between theist and Christian, no matter how much you argue otherwise, your posts speak for themselves. You should have asked if the Christian God still seemed plausible. Your mistake.
I don't know if I can get you to see it my way, but I've never come across the "Personal God" trope except in the context of Christianity. It is a significant tool in the Christian prosletyzer's kit and, as I said, that's the only condition under which I've seen it used. I guess that a Muslim arguably has a personal relationship with Allah, but that phrase has never been part of any rhetoric which I've seen them use, and you'd be hard pressed to have a Hindu frame his "relationship" with any of his gods in quite the same way. Jews probably worship a Personal God as well... You're right, that was sloppy on my part.

I have been consistently referring to Christianity, I just mangled the terms, so I'd argue that I'm not really confused about the Christian:theist distinction whether or not I've demonstrated that.

Even with respect to christians, you haven't presented anything here that is going to shake the foundation of their beliefs. (refer to the first paragraph in this reply)
As an intellectual argument, no. Maybe I'm naieve when I assume that the physical experiment will carry as much power as it did when I tried it. I'll take that under advisement.

I will state again my opinion is this topic is not interesting, and I will add that the premise is flawed. My posting here does not contradict that, as my arguments (rudimentary as they were, in response to obviously flawed ideas) started short, requiring very little thought or interest on my part. This changed when schiester made it personal, which of course added nothing to his argument except a distraction in his "quiz". So bravo!
Again, I've already explained why, in context, this behaviour was annoying. You seem to disagree.

"I must've hit it pretty close to the mark to get her all riled up like that, huh, kid?" han solo
You did, but not in the way you think you did.

You're not interested in this discussion, and I've said what I have to say so let's end here. Sorry I was so unpleasant about it.