So why should I be an atheist?

[ILOVEJESUS]

jimmyjet wrote

hi barney,

regarding dimensions, i took physics in high school and college, so that stuff has an interest for me.

we dont really even know what matter, space and time are in this universe, much less what is in the multiverse.

sure, we know certain aspects of them. we can make certain measurements of them.

but what is matter ? we keep breaking it down to smaller and smaller sizes. now it is quarks and electrons. i suspect that we have limitations as to how small we can go. and then we dont even know what an electron is. once we were taught that it was a negatively charged orb revolving around the nucleus. now it is some mysterious and nebulous thing.

space ? it allows us to have volume. but what is it ?

and time ? that is the biggest mystery of all. according to special relativity, if we were on a photon of light, we would measure a distance traveled of 0, and a duration taken of 0 - as we march across the entire universe.

these are clues to me that we dont really have the foggiest idea of what these things really are.

So what? None of this disproves magical massless invisible dancing monkeys on the moon either. Seems to me like you are trying to pave the way for an argument for the existence of a heaven/god, though not absolutely in correlation with RC teaching.
We also have a lot going on in particle physics to work out dark matter/energy, particles mass etc. Watch this space over the next decade or so.

[Barney]

It certainly doesnt prove invisible monkeys and theres no reasons why it should. However it is a facinating branch of science that i wish I understood. The more we learn about it the less places theists can hide their gods!

Jimmy; to continue the sin arguement, I think the word is loaded towards offending a god. Secular "bad stuff" is called "Crimes or Immorality".

Now we know that it is a crime against god, lets Identify the god as different gods have different things that offend them. Yaweh and Allah Hate bacon , Jesus loves it and Thor has no opinion.
Lets take Huitzilopochtli though for a change. Eating his body in the form of a cake will remove sin from a person. As will ritually stabbing a six year old girl to death to the roars of approving crowds. Even the parents of the girl cheer as they are doing a wonderful thing. Not to do this would be a great sin. perhaps mortal or venous!

Now the question here is where does Huity get his moral values from in order to proclaim what is sinful. Does he decree them so as bad or are they bad of their own neccessity?

Toodles

[ILOVEJESUS]

Barney wrote

It certainly doesnt prove invisible monkeys and theres no reasons why it should. However it is a facinating branch of science that i wish I understood. The more we learn about it the less places theists can hide their gods!

Jimmy; to continue the sin arguement, I think the word is loaded towards offending a god. Secular "bad stuff" is called "Crimes or Immorality".

Now we know that it is a crime against god, lets Identify the god as different gods have different things that offend them. Yaweh and Allah Hate bacon , Jesus loves it and Thor has no opinion.
Lets take Huitzilopochtli though for a change. Eating his body in the form of a cake will remove sin from a person. As will ritually stabbing a six year old girl to death to the roars of approving crowds. Even the parents of the girl cheer as they are doing a wonderful thing. Not to do this would be a great sin. perhaps mortal or venous!

Now the question here is where does Huity get his moral values from in order to proclaim what is sinful. Does he decree them so as bad or are they bad of their own neccessity?

Toodles

I made it clear why I was highlighting the fact it proves nothing. I think we will find out our apologist is a little more god needy than he is letting on.

[jimmyjet]

i think our moral values can come simply from our living experience.

i punch you in the face. it may make me feel good.

but then you punch me back. and i did not think that felt very good.

perhaps if i dont punch you, then you wont punch me.

"do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

i am pretty sure that people before civilization had considered that idea.

and i think most of the transgressions come because the transgressor thinks he can get away it, for one reason or another (he is bigger, stronger, wealthier, etc.).

lucy was around i think a few million years ago. and modern civilization goes back to about 3000 bc.

i dont think it takes a rocket scientist to look up at the sky, wonder how things were, and think of the concept of god. nor the do unto others.

these thoughts have been thought way before you and i and the organized religions came into existence.

[Barney]

ILOVEJESUS wrote

I made it clear why I was highlighting the fact it proves nothing. I think we will find out our apologist is a little more god needy than he is letting on.

Possible, but I havnt seen anything yet personally. Mebby I am Naive.

So far it looks like Jim simply was brought up to view Jesus as a god, then grew up and simply sees him as a nice guy, who you can attempt to be like.

Now us card carrying atheists can provide a million good reasons why Jesus was a complete tool, but Jimmy dosnt really care about that. He knows he is cherry picking, hasnt heard of the horror, thinks there is no evidence for gods and just wants to live his life well.





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[Barney]

jimmyjet wrote

i think our moral values can come simply from our living experience.

i punch you in the face. it may make me feel good.

but then you punch me back. and i did not think that felt very good.

perhaps if i dont punch you, then you wont punch me.

"do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

i am pretty sure that people before civilization had considered that idea.

and i think most of the transgressions come because the transgressor thinks he can get away it, for one reason or another (he is bigger, stronger, wealthier, etc.).

lucy was around i think a few million years ago. and modern civilization goes back to about 3000 bc.

i dont think it takes a rocket scientist to look up at the sky, wonder how things were, and think of the concept of god. nor the do unto others.

these thoughts have been thought way before you and i and the organized religions came into existence.

Yeah, pretty much agree here. Im a Moral subjectist and think we really get our morals from what is around us. Apart from the Doba Tribe (look it up) we have all figured out that punching hurts and we perhaps shouldnt do it.

The concept of sin then lies with the culture and the current zeitgeist. this fits well with the Christian and Muslim moral values which are steeped in stonings and burnings and homophobia and ways to not beat slaves too much in case they becoime useless.

It was the trend at the time and anything anti-trend was bad. And How could Wotan ever sanction something that was bad?

[jimmyjet]

hi barney,

you keep using terms that i am not familiar with, and too lazy to look up. but i think i usually get the drift anyways. for example, zeitgeist and wotan in your last post.

[jimmyjet]

Kinich Ahau wrote

Jimmyjet, I m sure it's not easy to free yourself from past indoctrination but I'm curious about just how much doctrine you have rid yourself of.

Tell me do you believe there is such a thing as sin?

after re-reading this, i had some more thoughts.

i would say it is very difficult to free one's self of brainwashing he receives as a kid. in fact, i dont think many ever do.

however, when i said i left the rc, i did not mean to infer that i changed all my thought processes.

i think i made clear that i am very happy with much of what i was taught.

so if i wasnt clear before, i want to state that my leaving the rc is not synonymous with ridding myself of all indoctrination.

what it does mean, is that my thoughts are no longer controlled by the rc. as i said, the rc may agree with me on some topics, and disagree with me on other topics.

note, i said the rc agreeing with me, not me agreeing with the rc.

with regards to sin, if we are defining it to be as barney stated (a transgression against god) - then it logically implies that for sin to exist, god must exist.

since the existence of god can not be proven or disproven, it does not seem to make sense to refer to something directly attached to him, since it also could not be proven or disproven.

i tend to use the word sin more informally - such that there is not much difference between sin and immoral.

this is why it is very important to define labels or terms, when discussing.

especially terms that really do not have sternly defined meanings. and labels almost never do - they tend to have wide variances in their connotations for people.

also my leaving of the rc, had absolutely no effect on my belief in god. leaving the rc came before i had the ability to admit that i did not know that god existed.

i also left before any of the knowledge about the priests became public.

it had more to do with my understanding of how money controlled the upper echelon, and how i was certain that the rc had no connection to god.

so i kept what i thought was good, got rid of the bad, and went my way.

btw, i still consider myself to be a spiritual person. but then again, spiritual is another word that has a different connotation for most people.

but since i am completely on the fence with regards to the existence of god, i do have my own thoughts about why i am here, if i assume that god does exist.

[jimmyjet]

Barney wrote

Possible, but I havnt seen anything yet personally. Mebby I am Naive.

So far it looks like Jim simply was brought up to view Jesus as a god, then grew up and simply sees him as a nice guy, who you can attempt to be like.

Now us card carrying atheists can provide a million good reasons why Jesus was a complete tool, but Jimmy dosnt really care about that. He knows he is cherry picking, hasnt heard of the horror, thinks there is no evidence for gods and just wants to live his life well.

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you know, this is almost making me laugh. but i try not to at someone else's expense.

but you guys are so on the defensive that you would not know an apple if it was sitting on the table in front of you. you would still be arguing that it was gonna turn into an orange at just the last moment !!

i have never proselytized in my life. i certainly have had discussions about god with many people, but only when they bring it up.

so if you are waiting for me to convert you to some thought process, my advice is not to hold your breath !!!

i have absolutely no desire whatsoever to "change" anyone's thought processes. whatever you choose to think or not think does not affect my life.

i am happy to exchange ideas. and if something i say inspires your thought processes, then great. if not, that is okay as well.

i have only a little bit more patience with jehovah witnesses than most of you guys do. although i would still be polite when i tell them i am not interested.

[Smellyoldgit]

jimmyjet wrote

i have only a little bit more patience with jehovah witnesses than most of you guys do. although i would still be polite when i tell them i am not interested.

I tell them to fuck off. Same thing.

[jimmyjet]

hi barney,

this is what makes me suspicious about at least a 4-dimensional spatial multiverse.

if we think about the surface area of an inflating ball or balloon, and imagine it to have zero thickness, such that it is a 2-dimensional area, then ..

1) we have a 2-dimensional universe moving thru a 3-dimensional space that these flatlanders know nothing about.

2) their science tells them that their universe sprang from a singularity (the center of the balloon in this case), but said singularity is not a part of this universe.

3) their science tells them that their universe is finite, but it has no edges. in other words, no matter where you go, you can not fall off, or leave it.

4) their science tells them that their universe is "curved". yet they only understand how a line can be curved. how can a plane curve ? what would it curve into ? remember they do not understand volume.

and this is just what our science tells us. and everything would fit if our universe was moving thru a 4-dimensional space. the 4th dimension would be at right angles to all 3 of our dimensions. we cant grasp that any more than the flatlander can grasp volume.

i am a systems analyst by trade (before i retired, anyways).

i find it intriguing as to what the system is really about. not how we measure things.

newton's measurements and theories still do a fine job at describing gravity in most situations. but he states that gravity is an innate attraction that every piece of matter has for every other piece of matter.

einstein comes along with a completely different set of measurements, and describes gravity as a body traveling in a curved path of least resistance.

i suspect that neither is correct. we make a mistake of thinking that we understand something just because we have mathematics that can predict its actions.

even in einstein's special theory of relativity, it gives equations that can be used to make conclusions about each person's MEASUREMENTS.

well there is a big flaw in that, if we try to use these measurements as conclusive proof that we know what some object is.

information is not instantaneous. the fact that this is true allows us to understand the evolution of the universe, for as we look out in space, we look backwards in time.

but it serves as a tremendous disadvantage when we want to know what the universe actually is - cuz we cant see that. at any one moment, all we see is a general gradation of how the universe was.

it would be like me looking at you. but instead of seeing you as you look, i would see every horizontal line of yours from top to bottom at different stages.

so for example, if you are 50 years old, i might see the top of your head when you were born, and the bottom of your feet at 50. with every other moment in time spaced in between.

that picture would be extremely unlike the picture of what i actually see today when i look at the 50-year old man that you are.

i highly suspect that it is not even possible for us to even understand everything in our universe as it really and truly is, much less outside of our universe !!

[ILOVEJESUS]

jimmyjet wrote

you know, this is almost making me laugh. but i try not to at someone else's expense.

but you guys are so on the defensive that you would not know an apple if it was sitting on the table in front of you. you would still be arguing that it was gonna turn into an orange at just the last moment !!

i have never proselytized in my life. i certainly have had discussions about god with many people, but only when they bring it up.

so if you are waiting for me to convert you to some thought process, my advice is not to hold your breath !!!

i have absolutely no desire whatsoever to "change" anyone's thought processes. whatever you choose to think or not think does not affect my life.

i am happy to exchange ideas. and if something i say inspires your thought processes, then great. if not, that is okay as well.

i have only a little bit more patience with jehovah witnesses than most of you guys do. although i would still be polite when i tell them i am not interested.

Not on the defensive at all. I just see an apologist in many ways, and that irritates me. Whether this leads to you trying to blow some religious horse shit in my general direction in the future, we shall wait and see. It may well end up with you adapting your stay to a less irritating one, (by my own standards I accept). When I first came here it was clear that my interest as a Pantheist was not that interesting to others here. That was an understatement. I am still here, so perhaps you will be too in a while.

[Barney]

jimmyjet wrote

hi barney,

this is what makes me suspicious about at least a 4-dimensional spatial multiverse.

I am very far removed from being a physist so am out of my depth here.

But a expanding balloon of infinate thinness does not gel with me. The balloon would "expand" in which directions? The skin not being infinatly thin as well, but non existant!

Carl Sagan explained it nicely. He did a programme (partly viewed on youtube" about a 2d world using an apple as a example.

That said I like the idea of within the quantum events of the planke duration at singularity of a floating set of boral points of possibilities locking together to create all mass ever from nothing any by that action creating time , which would I am sure you agree , cause quite a big bang. Thus explaining existance and time just by neccessity.

Now I type that, it actually seems really simple. I probably need to work on it a bit

Oh and sorry for the terminology. Zeitgeist is a kind of moving collaberation of ideas and thoughts within a group a society or a culture. A meme of many if you will.
Wotan is a Nordic god worshipped for a good couple of millenia

[jimmyjet]

the balloon was just an idea of a 2-dimensional surface.

the surface area moves thru the 3-dimensional volume of space, just as the surface of the balloon.

obviously our balloon has thickness, just like everything else in our 3-dimensional world.

but i think the example gives a good idea.

i remember that sagan bit - he was trying to explain what a 2-dimensional being would see, if the apple passed thru. that was in the cosmos tv show on pbs a long time ago.

the concept i am displaying though is very easy to see. one does not need to be a physicist. it is just looking at geometries.

and the science behind them. we can state the science in the 2-dimensional world, cuz we can actually see what would happen.

and that science that definitely applies in the 2-dimensions is exactly what our scientists are saying about our universe.

but no way to test that theory, cuz no way to go beyond our universe, which is by definition all that is available to us.

the one thing that i just recently contemplated is that there is no reason why our universe could not be a starting point for a large number of 2-dimensional universes.

i had never thought of it before, cuz all my interest lay in thinking about how our universe related to the whole.

it also seems to me that we have some limit as to how small of a particle we can discover. there is such a thing as an electron microscope. but trying to see things smaller than that - not sure that it is possible.

just like string theory - it may always remain a philosophy. by that i mean something that is not testable.

we know that matter can turn into energy. and so just what is energy. can we hold it in our hand ? and as matter completely transforms, just how many levels below quarks and electrons is that ?

when you talk about time being needed for matter - i assume you are referring to the vibrating motions of the various microscopic particles ?

again, this is in our universe only. we are using the terms matter, space and time to define the 3 innate qualities of our universe.

there is no way for us to think of life without time. that is because we were all formed in a universe in which these 3 qualities make everything else possible.

i see the eerie similarities to what scientists are measuring about our universe, and a simple geometric progression.

[jimmyjet]

Barney wrote

It certainly doesnt prove invisible monkeys and theres no reasons why it should. However it is a facinating branch of science that i wish I understood. The more we learn about it the less places theists can hide their gods!

hi barney,

i dont think this has anything to do with it. most believers do not think of heaven as something of this world.

somewhere in the bible, i think jesus refers to being in this world, but not of it, when referring to god the father ?

and i am pretty sure that this is true of most theists, christian or other.

i think i said this in my very first post, but whatever fight is between theists and scientists is strictly within their heads.

the belief in god is an attempt to answer the question who created the universe.

science tries to explain to us how the universe works, now that it has been created.

however, i actually think that the more we learn in science will tend to promote theism, not demote it.

the reason i say this is that we keep discovering how remarkable the universe is. the more we discover, the more remarkable it becomes.

and the more remarkable, the harder it is to think that it was not created by a living entity with enormous intelligence and power.

most people want to know why they are here, and how they got here, and all the answers about our universe and beyond. and it tends to make the average person uncomfortable being in the position of admitting that they dont know, and maybe in the position of never being able to know.

so they create answers for themselves that ease that burden. and certainly the most comfortable one is that of a good god watching over things for us.

i know if i ever have children, i will not subject them to any type of religion, or anti-religion. let them grow up, and hopefully have their mind free from brainwashing, (social, religious, and other).

most of us do not realize just how much we are conditioned to think what is desired of us.

to give one example, just about every kid coming out of school thinks that govt is a good thing. it takes many years of living on one's own, paying taxes, etc. to come to any realization that govt is simply a tool used by the wealthy to control the masses.

just why does one think that a govt continues to grow, until such time as a revolution occurs. but this is the history of govt, since govt began.