precisely the point I've been arguing for a while now: the hypocrisy of being giving up our personal and private data at the drop of a hat, yet being outraged when government uses it.

privacy as most people think of it is an outdated concept.

we give out that data freely all the time. we share what we're thinking and doing with Facebook and Twitter all the time.

Even when we're at home and not online, we still share private information freely with our friends and loved ones and that info gets shared with other friends and loved ones.

face it, the human being is not a private creature.

There is always going to be a risk of someone mis-using that collected information, but that doesn't mean the genie is put back in the bottle. All you can do is put safeguards in place and quite frankly, the human race needs to grow up a little so that the temptation to use it maliciously is easier to ignore.

they said the same shit about the nuclear bomb and we're still have yet to blow ourselves to kingdom come. In addition, when we master nuclear fusion it's going to leap us forward tremendously.

someone's eventually going to figure out a tremendously positive use for all of that sociological data that will benefit us greatly. That's typically the nature of all these military and space projects. The tech gets spun off into medical and other positive ventures.

There is a documentary on the feral girl, Genie, here:
*related=http://videosift.com/video/NOVA-Secret-of-the-Wild-Child

Tags for this video have been changed from 'feral child, genie, 13 years old, mute, diapers, isolation' to 'feral child, genie, 13 years old, isolation, abuse, language' - edited by xxovercastxx

The tech genie is out of the bottle and we're saved.

They will get smaller and become unnoticeable, so all glasses wearers will be suspect. Then they will be put in contact lenses. After that, direct implants in the eye. The tech genie is out of the bottle and, I'm afraid, we're screwed.

Hate to be an arctic genie.

I don't know what that means [edit -- wall of text thingy]. The Sift is the only place I have ever hung out and commented.

It isn't often that someone has such ... discharge.... maybe we don't really need it here? Even though I don't know what it means?

In reply to this comment by Stormsinger:
>> ^bareboards2:

Oh gawd. What a fricking long post. Sorry.


We need comment tags like wall-of-text, maybe? Used to have those a lot on GEnie.

>> ^bareboards2:

Oh gawd. What a fricking long post. Sorry.


We need comment tags like wall-of-text, maybe? Used to have those a lot on GEnie.

@shinyblurry

The facts are simple: the existence of God explains everything that you feel about wanting to do good, and the love that you have for people and life, and your atheism denies it. Yet you embrace what is contrary to your own experience.

AND from farther down

… your atheistic presuppositions about reality. You say no one has come back but one man has, but of course you dismiss the account as fantasy (again because of your atheistic presuppositions).

Those aren't facts though. Those are your opinions and conjectures. Your theory of God may explain a greater number of things around me than science, but it also raises more questions than it answers, which makes it a horrible theory. "My atheism" doesn't exist as a concept. I don't subscribe to any belief about Gods any more than a monkey does. Are monkeys atheistic? I'm like a monkey. I have no "-ism" that "denies" anything. I happen to lack belief in any supernatural deity. *This lack of belief defines my atheism, rather than atheism defining my lack of beliefs.* I can't believe you still don't understand my position (or lack thereof). I have no idea what you mean by embrace. Nothing about my experience with "meaningfulness" requires me to believe in any gods, particularly not Yahweh.

So if it makes you feel good its okay to be a slave? You don't mind being enslaved to a mindless irrational process because you get rewarded for it like a rat activating a feeder?

Chemicals in my brain cause me to feel hunger and crave food. I follow them because doing so makes me feel good. I don't consider myself weak for being driven by those chemicals in my brain. To really feel like a slave, I'd have to be compelled to follow the commands of a sentient being, like a plantation owner with a whip, or a god of love threatening me with eternal torture, for instance, not chemicals in my own brain. Can there be shame in being a slave to yourself?

So I will modify this and say that you're living like a theist does but denying it with your atheism.

You changed one word, but missed the point of mine, so I've changed the same word: So I would turn it around and say instead that it's Christians *theists* who go about their lives living like normal humans, but thinking they're being good because their religion tells them to.

Now what?

Therefore what you're talking about is a herd morality.

Yep. Pretty much.

The entire point of my example was to show that if we simply have a herd morality where the majority tells us what is good and evil, then if the majority ever said child rape is good it would be.

If your whole final end goal is to prove your child rape hypothetical is internally consistent, and not to extend it into the real world, then yep, that's logically quite true. However, if you want to use it make any point about proving my beliefs to be somehow wrong, then you'll have to give me reason to believe it could ever possibly happen in a sustainable way.

My point was that we all come pre-programmed with a need for worship, which you apparently agree with. That is what is natural to us … It is actually more natural for us to rebel against God because of our corrupt nature.

Are we programmed to worship, or to rebel against God? Which is it? I propose that we're genetically designed to do exactly what makes us happy. Being good to others makes us (non-psychos) happy. Worship also makes many of us happy. Cognitive dissonance does not. I don't believe in any god, so I can't possibly worship one with a straight face. That would be cognitively dissonant and make me unhappy. I see no need to introduce the concept of "corruption".

The sense we agreed upon and have been discussing is that that life without God is meaningless … Therefore the meaning you derive from your feelings is only an illusion created by chemical reactions in your brain.

All cognition, from self-awareness, to thought, to the senses, to desires, to emotions, to numinous experiences, all of it is 100% chemical reactions. It's only fair to call my conscience an "illusion" if I also consider everything else that I perceive to be an illusion created by the chemicals in my mind. My feelings are as subjectively real as my senses.

There are other causes of depression but you see my point. Hope is the solution to depression.

That can be true. It's human nature to want to worship, and worshipping something can give hope. So for some people, if they can convince themselves to believe it, worshipping a god can lift them out of depression.

On what basis do you say your belief is more likely?

Occam's razor.

You say there is no reason to speculate (ever); now that is an interesting statement from someone who believes in open inquiry. What you've said is actually the death of inquiry. And let's be clear about this; you have speculated.

If there's no way to establish the truth of something, then there's no sense in trying to do so. There are no reliable records of the afterlife, so hoping to reach a conclusion is a vain pursuit. You can imagine hypotheticals, but you can't give any rationale for preferring one over another. Except by Occam's razor. What you consider "speculation" is just me saying, "nothing disproves anything about the afterlife".

Of course anything is possible when you summon your magic genie of evolution. "Time itself performs the miracles for you."

It's scientific fact, not mine, not anyone's. It's yours too, if you want it. You just have to go and learn about it from an unbiased source, not from uninformed people with pre-conceived ideas about what it is and isn't.

So no one is really bad?

In the relative non-objective morality sense, no, nobody is inherently bad or "evil" apart from our judgement of their actions. We often call people "bad", but that's just shorthand for what I said, or for having difficulty accepting that another person can do something so contrary to our concept of good.

Well, I'm fairly sure you've told me before that you hate the idea of God telling you what to do.

True, I would resent anybody giving me free will, then giving me a choice of doing what they say or accepting the worst conceivable torture for eternity. Did I misunderstand something?

[me:]Does the bible that say that rape is wrong? Does it say you cannot marry a child?

[you:]I've covered this above, but I will also add that if we had evolved differently, then in your worldview, all of this would be moot. We are only in this particular configuration because of circumstance, and not design. It could just as easily be 1000 different other ways. There could easily be scenarios where we evolved to exploit children instead of nuture them.

For a species to evolve to exploit children rather than nurture them is nearly impossible. That gene would get weeded out of the gene pool very quickly. Maybe I'm missing your point, and what you're really trying to say is that according to me, human feelings about right and wrong are, at their essence, random, because humans could have developed different feelings about right and wrong. I agree.

Back to my question: Does the Bible say that rape is wrong? Does it say that you cannot marry a child? To save time, could you point me to a neat summary of all the biblical rules that still stand? The Commandments were given in the Old Testament. I thought that law was struck down and there was a new covenant now, no? No sex before marriage is one, I'm assuming. Do you have to attend mass on Sundays? What are the others? I'm surprised to hear that you don't think the Bible suggests any position on condom usage. Is that just a Catholic hang-up then?

[me:]In both cases, you didn't address my point. 1) I'm stating that Yahweh's laws are far, far more complex than secular morality. You countered that Yahweh's laws were as simple as Jesus' two rules.

[you:]Romans 13:9-10

I agree that the rules in that verse are clearly derived from "love your neighbour", except maybe coveting, but that's not the point. Once I see the summary of biblical edicts, I'm sure I'll be able to point out that "Love your neighbour" isn't enough, that there are rules you would only follow because they're stated in the Bible, not because they obviously flow from the concept of neighbourly love.

So, when we think about doing unto others, we would think about it in the context of how Jesus taught us to behave.

So you're saying that we have to adjust our conscience first to align with the Bible, and then follow it. I'm saying we can just follow it according to what is bad for people.

abortion statistics

Good point. Foetal rights/women's rights is the moral debate of our times, IMO, maybe of all history. I haven't found any solid position on that issue. I've thought a lot about it, but this isn't the place to debate it. Suffice it to say I don't see abortion as a good thing, but not equal to infanticide either.

So your answer is yes? You think that without religion, society may decide torturing babies is good because it decided that killing Jews was good?

Yes, I think an entire society could end up agreeing on something that depraved, just like the ancient Greek society approved of paedophilia.

You know Germans were 94% Christian during WWII, right? And that the Greeks had those relations consensually? I'm against legalizing sex with children because it would be abused and children would be victimized, not because I think it's impossible for a child to enjoy and benefit from sex. I did it when I was underage and it was nothing but good.

You also act as if I am trying to defend all religion, which I'm not.

The thing is, you regularly invoke the 85% of humans who are theist when having a large number bolsters your argument, yet you disassociate yourself from most of them when their behaviour weakens your argument. I can never tell who you're talking about. Clearly identify the people you're talking about at all times, and we won't have this problem.

In any case, there are many examples of non-believing societies doing sick and depraved things to their populations.

And many Christian societies too, but I'm sure you'll disassociate yourselves from *those* Christians.

Tortured for Christ

According to Jesus, the Romanian government was appointed by God, so those Christians must have been doing something wrong, perhaps rebelling:

Romans 13:1-5

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.

That passage, BTW, makes my stomach turn for all the people (Christian or otherwise) who have been tortured and killed at the hands of immoral rulers. And Jesus says might makes right. Go Jesus go. Prick.

[you:]… logic, rationality, morality, uniformity in nature …

[me:]You're slipping back into solipsism. We agreed not to go there. I'm not going to answer any of those things.

[you:]Now you're just trying to duck the issue, and perhaps you don't understand what solipsism is, because this is not solipsism. Solipsism is the belief that only your mind is sure to exist.

What I am talking about is right in line with the video. Without God you don't have any ultimate justification not just for any kind of value, but even for your own reasoning. It is a direct implication of a meaningless existence. This is what I mean about a justifies b justifies c justifies d into infinity. You have nowhere to stake a claim which can justify anything which you experience, or even your own rationality. If you feel you do, please demonstrate why you believe your reasoning is actually valid.

Then you've entirely missed the point of me making those rules back at Qualiasoup v. Craig.

We agreed not to question the validity of our senses. If I can trust my senses, then I am self-aware. I must assume I'm a rational agent, since it was my own rational awareness that defined my self. If I'm a rational agent, then I can trust logic, which Craig tells us in the same video is a rational thing to do.

If your whole argument is, "a god must exist for you to be able to use logic" then I put it to you to show me logically (and not tautologically) why that must be true. To me, there's no connection.

I still don't see the infinite regression. Give me a real example of it in the form a justifies b which justifies c....

Also, what's "uniformity in nature" and when do I ever appeal to it?

Before any quotes, I'll give my own overarching point: Life without a higher purpose may be ultimately meaningless (I'll get more into what sense I mean), and that makes life more difficult than if there were ultimate meaning, but that has no bearing whatsoever on the truth value of the existence of Yahweh. You cannot derive Yahweh's existence (or any deity or pantheon) from your claim that life is easier that way. [Edit: Turns out I never actually get to that conclusion in my comments below, so you might as well address it here, but after you've read the rest.]

The point was never that a meaningless Universe makes life more difficult; you simply decided that was the point. The point the video makes, and which I have also been making, is that you are suffering from cognitive dissonance by having no ultimate justification for your value system, but living as if you do. You admit that under atheism the Universe is meaningless, and so we've been debating on whether you can find any justification for a value system in a meaningless Universe. The explanation you have ultimately given me is that you believe there is a right and wrong, and people do have value, because you feel it. Do you realize this proves what I have been saying all along?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the term used in modern psychology to describe the state of holding two or more conflicting cognitions (e.g., ideas, beliefs, values, emotional reactions) simultaneously.

Your atheism tells you that life without God is meaningless. Your feelings tell you that life is meaningful. These are two conflicting cognitions. Instead of realizing that and re-evaluating your atheism, you say that you don't know why and you don't care. That is the very definition of cognitive dissonance.

But the fact is that somehow, in the context of my own little 80-year microblip in the lifespan of our planet, I do care. I just do. I have nothing more than a pet theory about why I care. I care, and I care a lot. I suppose I'm somewhat curious as to why I care, but it's not of primary importance for me to know. I just do, and it's pleasing to notice that just about everyone else around me does too. The only question for me is how to follow this desire of mine to be good given my circumstances.

The facts are simple: the existence of God explains everything that you feel about wanting to do good, and the love that you have for people and life, and your atheism denies it. Yet you embrace what is contrary to your own experience.

And why should I reject being a slave to chemicals? The chemicals MAKE ME FEEL GOOD, remember? Should I purposefully do things that make me feel bad? Why on Earth would I even consider it? Ridiculous.

So if it makes you feel good its okay to be a slave? You don't mind being enslaved to a mindless irrational process because you get rewarded for it like a rat activating a feeder?

I reject the description that I live my life "as a Christian does", as if Christians invented or have some original claim being good. All humans, regardless of faith or lack thereof, believe in the value of humans (or, any societies that don't value humans go extinct very quickly). We all generally shun murder and violence, foster mutual care, enjoy one another's company, feel protective, have a soft spot for babies and so forth, and have been doing all of this as a species since before Christianity began.

So I would turn it around and say instead that it's Christians who go about their lives living like normal humans, but thinking they're being good because their religion tells them to.

Most people in this world (around 85 - 90 percent) are theists. If we are going to talk about universal belief in this world then it is theism which is normal. That is historically where our morality comes from. Everyone who believes in God has an ultimate justification for right and wrong, but atheists do not. So I will modify this and say that you're living like a theist does but denying it with your atheism.

I can claim that I have a stronger sense of what's right and wrong than the psychopath simply because they are defined as lacking that sense (or, perhaps non-psychopaths are defined as people having that sense). And you're right that I do not claim that my way of determining which actions are appropriate is inherently superior to the psychopath's. As it happens, my way of determining morality puts me among the overwhelming majority, and so it's relatively easy for me to mitigate the negative impacts of people like that by identifying and avoiding them. I don't say that my way should be preferred to the pshychopath's; I just notice that it is, and I'm grateful for that, and for the fact that psychopathy is not a choice.

Actually, psychopaths do know right from wrong, but they don't care.

In any case, what you're saying here contradicts your later claim that my hypothetical about a society approving of child rape is ridiculous, and proves my point. You admit here that you couldn't say that your way of morality is superior to psychopathy, it just so happens that there are more of you than there are of them. You name that as the reason why your way should be preferred. Therefore what you're talking about is a herd morality.

Now think about if the situation were reversed and psychopaths were in the majority. Your version of morality would no longer be preferred, and psychopaths would no longer need to conform to your standards; you would need to conform to theirs. Whatever was normalized in a psychopathic society would be what was called good and whatever the psychopathic society rejected would be called evil. This is proof that everything I said was true. The entire point of my example was to show that if we simply have a herd morality where the majority tells us what is good and evil, then if the majority ever said child rape is good it would be. This is simply a fact. Whether you think it could happen or not is relevent to the point.

You're drowning in a sea of relativism, where a justifies b and b justifies c and c justifies d, and this goes into an infinite regress.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Can you give an example of a justification to infinite regression that would cause some kind of problem unique to non-thesitic morality?

I'll get to this later.

I don't accept that it's any more natural to worship Yahweh than some other deity or pantheon or idol, and I can't imagine how you could justify such a position without referring to dogma. Ask a Muslim. He'll tell you with the same conviction that Allah is the natural way and show you his own dogma. 100 years ago, a Japanese would have told you it was natural to worship the Emperor, and today he'd say it's natural to worship ancestors. My point is that any worship will satisfy our natural urge to worship, which is why almost all people worship something, and the object of worship you're brought up around is the one you're most likely to be comfortable with worshipping, naturally.

The reason I said this was in reply to your assertion that we developed religion because it answered questions and made us feel comfortable. My point was that we all come pre-programmed with a need for worship, which you apparently agree with. That is what is natural to us. It has nothing to do with whether it is more or less natural to worship Jesus. It is actually more natural for us to rebel against God because of our corrupt nature. It's only through personal revelation that we direct our worship in the right direction.

People don't naturally conclude life is meaningless; they know from their experience that it is very meaningful. They are taught it is meaningless through philosophy and the ennui that comes from modern life. You will never find a population of natural atheists anywhere on the planet.

The problem —and one that I fell into myself— is the conflation of two senses of the word "meaningless". For example, I can say without conflict that the planet and humanity is doomed and so forth, so our actions are ultimately meaningless, AND that interacting with people gives meaning to my life. Now, in the first sense, I mean there's no teleological purpose to my life. In the second sense, I mean certain people and things in my life give fulfillment/bliss.

The sense we agreed upon and have been discussing is that that life without God is meaningless. In this sense, it is still equally meaningless whether human civilization implodes or doesn't implode. Therefore the meaning you derive from your feelings is only an illusion created by chemical reactions in your brain.

Your anecdotal evidence about depression doesn't make you an authority on *the single cause* of depression. Some depressives follow your pattern, and others don't. I don't. When I'm depressed, my feeling isn't hopelessness. In fact, these days, I'm feeling rather hopeless, but I'm not depressed.

You can feel hopeless and not be depressed, but the source of the depression is almost always hopelessness. I'll give you some examples. If you put all of the worlds depressed people in a very large room, and gave each of them a check for 10 million dollars, you will have instantly cured around 80 percent of them. The majority of depression comes being stuck in a bad situation that you don't feel like you can change, situations that cause a lot of stress and unhappiness. A lot of money buys a lot of change. Many of the rest are probably depressed because of health issues, and if you could offer them a cure (hope), they would be cured as well. The remainder are probably depressed because of extreme neurosis. There are other causes of depression but you see my point. Hope is the solution to depression.

It's not my hope. I believe that dead is dead. Much simpler than your belief. Much more likely too. You're implying that I'm following some faulty reasoning about the afterlife. Among the things I don't know are an *infinite number of possibilities* of what could happen in the afterlife, one of which is your bible story. My best guess is nothing. Since nobody's ever come back from the dead to talk about it (Did nobody interview Lazarus? What a great opportunity missed!), nobody knows, so there's no reason to speculate about it ever. Your book says whatever it says, and I don't care because to me it's fairy tales. I'd have to be an idiot to live my life differently because of a book I didn't first believe in. Just like you'd be an idiot to live like a non-believer if you believe so much in Yahweh.

On what basis do you say your belief is more likely?

Someone has come back from the dead to talk about it: Jesus Christ. You don't have to believe the bible; you can ask Him yourself. You say there is no reason to speculate (ever); now that is an interesting statement from someone who believes in open inquiry. What you've said is actually the death of inquiry. And let's be clear about this; you have speculated. You are basing your conclusion on no evidence but merely your atheistic presuppositions about reality. You say no one has come back but one man has, but of course you dismiss the account as fantasy (again because of your atheistic presuppositions).

I would also ask how you think the brain understands the complex moral scenarios we find ourselves in and rewards or doesn't reward accordingly? Doesn't that seem fairly implausible to you?

It's quite plausible. I'm no biologist, but I'm sure there's a branch of evolutionary biology that deals with social feelings. My own pet theory is that these feelings are comparable to the ones that control the behaviour of all communal forms of life, like ants and zebras and red-winged blackbirds. It's evolution, either way, IMO.

Of course anything is possible when you summon your magic genie of evolution. "Time itself performs the miracles for you."

What makes someone a bad person?

In the absolute sense, religious faith, only, can bring that kind of judgement as a meaningful label.

In the relative sense where I would colloquially refer to someone as "a bad person" (my prime minister, Stephen Harper is an example), I mean someone who has shown they are sufficiently disruptive to other people's happiness due to acting too much in their own self-interest that they're best removed from influence and then avoided. But I would only use that term as a shorthand among people who knew that I don't moralize absolutely.

So no one is really bad?

Do you think this could have something to do with the fact that the bible says you should do things you don't want to do, or that you should stop doing things you don't want to stop doing?

An interesting question, but no. I don't believe it because everything I see points all religion being a human invention.

Well, I'm fairly sure you've told me before that you hate the idea of God telling you what to do.

Your hypothetical is an appeal to the ridiculous. It simply is a fact that just about everyone —including child rapists, I'm guessing— believes that child rape is wrong for the simple reason that it severely hurts children. If it increases a person's suffering, then it's wrong. I can think of nothing simpler. Your hypothetical is like one where a passage in the bible prescribed child rape. Would it be OK then? Does the bible that say that rape is wrong? Does it say you cannot marry a child?

I've covered this above, but I will also add that if we had evolved differently, then in your worldview, all of this would be moot. We are only in this particular configuration because of circumstance, and not design. It could just as easily be 1000 different other ways. There could easily be scenarios where we evolved to exploit children instead of nuture them.

In both cases, you didn't address my point. 1) I'm stating that Yahweh's laws are far, far more complex than secular morality. You countered that Yahweh's laws were as simple as Jesus' two rules. I showed that was wrong with my AIDS in Africa example (condoms saving lives). You can address that, or you can agree that Yahweh's laws are more complex that Harris' model of secular morality.

I hope I don't need to point out that the bible says nothing about condoms. Gods morality is really as simple as the two greatest commandments because if you follow those you will follow all the rest:

Romans 13:9-10

The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

When you love your neighbor and love God you are basically doing the whole law right there. There are some particulars that can emerge in different situations just like we have laws for different situations, and so Harris would have to accommodate those as well.

2) I also pointed out that Jesus gave us a moral model that requires the individual to determine for themselves based on fixed criteria what's good and what's not. "… as you would have your neighbour do unto you…" implicitly requires the individual to compare their actions with what they themselves would want someone else to do to them. That means relying on their own understanding. This contradicts your other statements that we shouldn't rely on our own understanding. You see? To follow Jesus' second law, you must rely on your own understanding.

Yes, in this case we would rely on our own understanding, as informed by the biblical worldview. What scripture is saying when it says "lean not on your own understanding" is that we make God the Lord of our reasoning. So, when we think about doing unto others, we would think about it in the context of how Jesus taught us to behave.

[you:]What about all of Pagan societies throughout the ages that sacrificed their children to demons?

You're making my point for me. Paganism is religion. Non-believers would never justify a habit of killing their own children.

Yes they would:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,880,00.html

So your answer is yes? You think that without religion, society may decide torturing babies is good because it decided that killing Jews was good?

[me:]If you think I’m being ridiculous, what do you think is more likely: that a society somewhere will suddenly realize that they feel just fine about torturing babies, or that a society somewhere will get the idea that it’s their god’s will that they torture babies? Human instinct is much more consistent than the will of any gods ever recorded.

Yes, I think an entire society could end up agreeing on something that depraved, just like the ancient Greek society approved of paedophilia. You also act as if I am trying to defend all religion, which I'm not. There are plenty of sick and depraved religions out there, and religions can easily corrupt a culture, like islam has done to the Arab culture.

In any case, there are many examples of non-believing societies doing sick and depraved things to their populations. Millions of Christians were murdered by communists in the 1940's and 50's. I highly recommend you read this book:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CB8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gracealoneca.com%2Fsitebuildercontent%2Fsitebu
ilderfiles%2Ftortured_for_christ.pdf&ei=PSNiUIyTCsPqiwLYtYGQCw&usg=AFQjCNG-ro4rM7dfvFCkgIvjnmgdhQnSPA&cad=rja

The fact is, in a meaningless Universe you simply can't prove anything without God. You actually have no basis for logic, rationality, morality, uniformity in nature, but you live as if you do. If I ask you how you know your reasoning is valid, you will reply "by using my reasoning".

You're slipping back into solipsism. We agreed not to go there. I'm not going to answer any of those things.

Now you're just trying to duck the issue, and perhaps you don't understand what solipsism is, because this is not solipsism. Solipsism is the belief that only your mind is sure to exist.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solipsism

What I am talking about is right in line with the video. Without God you don't have any ultimate justification not just for any kind of value, but even for your own reasoning. It is a direct implication of a meaningless existence. This is what I mean about a justifies b justifies c justifies d into infinity. You have nowhere to stake a claim which can justify anything which you experience, or even your own rationality. If you feel you do, please demonstrate why you believe your reasoning is actually valid.

>> ^messenger:

stuff

You tell me that you understand science, and were once very scientific, then you drop --excuse me-- a giant turd like this. I could as easily say, "If the Theory of Evolution is correct, then all living creatures are evidence of Theory of Evolution's correctness," and it would still be a meaningless statement because if we already know something is true (as in the premise), then evidence is redundant. It's precisely when we don't know something that evidence becomes useful. This is probably the hardest part about talking to you -- your weak grasp on how science and logic work. And don't take this as an internet ad hom. I'm being straight with you, really. It's not your strong suit. Own it.

Actually, I think that it is you who is demonstrating a weak grasp of logic here. It seems that what I was getting at went right over your head. What you've done here is rip my statement out of its context, and then claimed I was using it in a meaningless way that I never intended. It is a straw man argument, really, and yes you did use ad homs. A giant turd? Saying that its really hard to talk to me because of my weak grasp of science and logic? Come on. I had thought that our dialogue had transcended these kind of petty caricatures.

In context, the statement is designed to get you think outside the box you're in and weigh both sides of the issue equally. It's not an argument in itself. The statement that if God exists, everything that exists is empirical evidence for God is a logically valid statement. If God exists, everything you're looking at right now if proof that He exists. Obviously, this statement by itself doesn't help you determine whether God actually exists or not. You could just as easily say that if God doesn't exist, everything that does exist is proof that He doesn't exist. Therefore, the question is, how would you tell if you're in a Universe that God designed?

The real question is, why is either possibility more or less likely than the other? You haven't addressed this, but simply have taken a leap of faith in favor of your atheistic naturalism. You say, I don't see the Planner, and I didn't see the Planner make this Universe, therefore it is not designed until proven otherwise. The problem with this is that you can't even begin to justify this assumption until you can explain why either possibility is any more likely than the other. You can't say you don't see any empirical evidence because it might be staring you in the face everywhere you look. To analyze how either possibility is more likely than the other you have to discard your assumptions about what you have seen or haven't seen and think about this on a deeper level.

Taking it a step deeper, the fact is, you would only expect to see exactly what you do see, because you are in fact a created being. A created being should expect to find himself existing in an environment capable of creating him. The crux is though that this environment is also finely tuned. You should expect to see what you do, but you should also be surprised to find that it is finely tuned. It a bit like being taken out for execution in front of a firing squad of 100 expert marksmen 3 feet away, and finding yourself alive after all of them opened fire. You should not be surprised to find yourself alive, because obviously you would have to be alive to find yourself alive, but you should be surprised to find that 100 expert marksmen missed you from 3 feet away. In the same way, you should be surprised to find yourself to be a created being in a finely tuned Universe.

What you have on your hands is a Universe full of empirical evidence that it was or wasn't designed. There are only two possibilities; the Universe was either planned or unplanned. Again, how would you tell the difference? What would you expect to see which is different from what you do see? What would make either possibility more likely? That is the point. A finely tuned Universe should tip the scales of that evidence, if you are being honest about what you can really prove.

Supernatural creation is easier to understand, but just about any other explanation is as or more plausible. When you consider some of the extreme coincidences that are required for us to exist, it stretches the mind. But we've had billions of years to evolve, and if we're talking about the whole universe, it could be that 10^one trillion universes with different physical properties have formed and collapsed, and when a balanced one finally came out of the mix, it stuck around, and here we are.

It could be, except there is no evidence there is. Why is it you that can imagine an infinite number of hypothetical Universes with no evidence, but you object to supernatural creation as somehow being less plausible than that? There is no evidence that it is less plausible, you simply assume it is. Sure, if you use your magic genie of time and chance you could imagine just about anything could happen. Scientists agree:

Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.

George Wald, Nobel Laureate, Harvard
Physics and Chemistry of Life p.12

The odds of any of this happening by itself far exceeds the number of atoms in the Universe, and there is no actual proof that it actually could happen by itself, but you still believe it to be more plausible. Why is that? In the end, why is it plausible that anything would exist at all? Why isn't everything equally unlikely in the end? Notice what George Wald said? He said time itself performs the *miracles*. He said that because the existence of life is nothing short of a miracle, but even knowing that, you would still say God is implausible. I think these arguments are what is implausible.

Look at how these scientists come to the same conclusions as you have:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/

They acknowledge there are only two possibilities, one being God, but since they hate that possibility more than they hate embracing the anthropic principle, they go with that instead, having absolutely no evidence to base that conclusion on. They simply don't want to acknowledge the obvious, which is that a finely tuned Universe is *much* stronger evidence for an omnipotent God than it is for multiple Universes.

I would take a declarative statement about him, and see what implications it had, what predictions it made, then see if they were testable, either theoretically or practically. Like theoretically if God is omniscient, it means he knows everything, and if I can find an example of something he absolutely cannot know, then I've proven he's not omniscient.

What God says is that as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts. He also calls the wisdom of this world, foolishness. So God has directly said that it is only by His revelation and not our understanding that we can come to know Him. A limited temporal creature, trying to disprove Gods existence with his own corrupt reasoning is kind of laughable, isn't it?

In any case, it's easy to think of things God doesn't know or can't do. God doesn't know what it feels like to not exist. God can't remember a time that He didn't exist. God can't make a square circle, or an acceptable sin. This doesn't prove anything. A better definition would be, omniscience is knowing everything that can be known, and omnipotence is being able to do everything that can be done.

Or practically, if God answers prayers, then I can test that statistically. Now, you say that God refuses to be tested, but that also means that if people are sincerely praying, but someone else is measuring the effects of those prayers, that God will choose not to answer those prayers, "Sorry! I'm being tested for, so I can't help you out today." This puts the power of denying God's prayers in the hands of scientists -- ridiculous. So there's two tests for God.

Or perhaps He had sovereignly arranged for only insincere prayers or prayers outside of His will to be prayed for at that time which would give the results of the test the appearance of randomness.

This is self-fulfilling prophecy. The only reason the Jewish people came back to form a country again is because their holy book said they were entitled to do so, divine providence. Like Macbeth likely never would have become king of Scotland if he hadn't been told so by the Weird Sisters.

The Jews are historically from Israel, and there is archaeological evidence to prove this. The reason they came back to Israel is because it is historically their homeland. Given the opportunity, they would have come back to Israel with or without the bible saying they were entitled to. The point is that they were predicted to come back, not only around the date that they did, but their migration pattern was in the exact order, their currency was predicted, their economic and agricultural condition was predicted, and many other things.

I'm no biblical scholar, but I found three places where the destruction of Jerusalem is predicted. The first is in Micah 3:11-12, where it simply states that it will happen at some point. It doesn't say when, nor describe any of the circumstances. The second one I found is Daniel 9:24-26, where there's some detail that sounds kinda like Jesus, except that it was supposed to happen within 70 weeks (16 months) of when God spoke to Daniel, roughly 530 years BC. Or if you understand that the signal to begin the 70 weeks hadn't been issued yet, then Jerusalem was to have been build a mere 16 months before it was destroyed by Titus, which clearly isn't the case either. It also predicts the end will be by flood, but it was by fire, and then manual labour of soldiers, if Josephus' account is to be believed (he wasn't impartial).

The 70 weeks are not concurrent, first of all. Second, Jesus is the one who predicted the fall of Jerusalem:

Luk 19:41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,
Luk 19:42 saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
Luk 19:43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side
Luk 19:44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

I would have to accept Jesus as messiah before I could accept this argument. And if I had already accepted him as messiah, then the argument would be meaningless, just like the one about the universe as evidence for God's existence.

I'll rephrase this by saying, that Jesus fulfilled dozens of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Clearly, the impact of that Jesus has had on the world matches His claims about who He is. Consider this quotation by Napoleon:

"What a conqueror!--a conqueror who controls humanity at will, and wins to himself not only one nation, but the whole human race. What a marvel! He attaches to himself the human soul with all its energies. And how? By a miracle which surpasses all others. He claims the love of men--that is to say, the most difficult thing in the world to obtain; that which the wisest of men cannot force from his truest friend, that which no father can compel from his children, no wife from her husband, no brother from his brother--the heart. He claims it ; he requires it absolutely and undividedly, and he obtains it instantly.

Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, Louis XIV strove in vain to secure this. They conquered the world, yet they had not a single friend, or at all events, they have none any more. Christ speaks, however, and from that moment all generations belong to him; and they are joined to him much more closely than by any ties of blood and by a much more intimate, sacred and powerful communion. He kindles the flame of love which causes one's self-love to die, and triumphs over every other love. Why should we not recognize in this miracle of love the eternal Word which created the world? The other founders of religions had not the least conception of this mystic love which forms the essence of Christianity.

I have filled multitudes with such passionate devotion that they went to death for me. But God forbid that I should compare the enthusiasm of my soldiers with Christian love. They are as unlike as their causes. In my case, my presence was always necessary, the electric effect of my glance, my voice, my words, to kindle fire in their hearts. And I certainly posses personally the secret of that magic power of taking by storm the sentiments of men; but I was not able to communicate that power to anyone. None of my generals ever learned it from me or found it out. Moreover, I myself do not possess the secret of perpetuating my name and a love for me in their hearts for ever, and to work miracles in them without material means.

Now that I languish here at St Helena, chained upon this rock, who fights, who conquers empires for me? Who still even thinks of me? Who interests himself for me in Europe? Who has remained true to me? That is the fate of all great men. It was the fate of Alexander and Caesar, as it is my own. We are forgotten, and the names of the mightiest conquerors and most illustrious emperors are soon only the subject of a schoolboy's taks. Our exploits come under the rod of a pedantic schoolmaster, who praises or condemns us as he likes.

What an abyss exists between my profound misery and the eternal reign of Christ, who is preached, loved, and worshipped, and live on throughout the entire world. Is this to die? Is it not rather to live eternally? The death of Christ! It is the death of a God."

Nope. Eternal means within all time. It implies that such an entity wouldn't necessarily exist outside of time. Maybe you meant a different word, but "eternal" doesn't describe whoever created time, if words have meaning.

Words do have meaning. Check any dictionary; the definition I used is there:

e·ter·nal/i't?rnl/
Adjective:

Lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning.
(of truths, values, or questions) Valid for all time; essentially unchanging.

What is this (especially the bits in bold) based on? It this biblical? Your intuition?

Isaiah 29:13

The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men

1 Samuel 16:7

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart

You can give God all of the lip service you want, but He is only interested in what is in your heart.

Yes, the Lord will test your sincerity:

1 Peter 1:6-7

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Also, if God knows everything, then what could he possibly be "testing" for? You only need to test things if you don't already know. And if he does know, the he's just messing with my head, in which case, it's not a test.

The metaphor that is used for testing is that of impurities being refined out of gold or silver. Tests are to prove your sincerity, not necessarily what God knows.

>> ^messenger

this is fucking AWESOME!!!

Episode 1 (Monday May 28th) 0:22 Changes 0:27 Sound & Vision 0:44Cygnet Committee 0:56 Aladdin Sane 1:04 Watch That Man 1:03 Scary Monsters Episode 2 (Tuesday May 29th) 1:14 Fantastic Voyage 1:22 Kooks1:28 Be My Wife 1:33 The Prettiest Star 1:38 Subterraneans Episode 3 (Wednesday May 30th) 1:42 Sweet Thing 1:49 Starman 2:14 Speed Of Life2:22 Unwashed & Somewhat Slightly Dazed 3:02 Future Legend Episode 4 (Thursday May 31st) 3:07 Fame 3:18 What In The World 3:30 Station To Station Episode 5 (Monday June 4th) 3:38 Wild Is The Wind 3:44 Heroes 3:53 Golden Years 3:57 Fascination 4:55 An Occasional Dream 5:03 All The Young Dudes Episode 6 (Tuesday June 5th) 5:15 Ziggy Stardust 5:26 The Width Of A Circle 5:40 Young Americans Episode 7 (Wednesday June 6th) 6:06 The Jean Genie 6:11 Rebel, Rebel 6:24 Moss Garden 6:31 Fashion Episode 8 (Thursday June 7th) 6:45 Up The Hill Backwards 7:10 Big Brother 7:35 When The Wind Blows
Episode 9 (Monday June 11th) 7:50 Drive in Saturday 7:57 After All 8:04Somebody Up There Likes Me 8:27 Oh! You Pretty Things Episode 10 (Tuesday June 12th) 8:46 Hang Onto Yourself 8:57 It's No Game 9:01 Boys Keep Swinging 9:18 Pin Ups Episode 11 (Wednesday June 13th) 9:27 Life On Mars 9:34 Repetition 9:42 The Man Who Sold the World 9:54 Eight Line Poem 10:34 Space Oddity Episode 12 (Thursday June 14th) 10:46 Across The Universe 10:59 Diamond Dogs 11:19 Cracked Actor




Is he against using drones against bonafide targets? He didn't say. Or is he simply against drones per se? Drones are cheaper, becoming more accurate, more effective and save pilots lives, but they must be used selectively. Weapons technology is advancing exponentially, but the weapons aren't the problem, those who deploy them are. Targets should be 110% identified and verified before deployment, or we will appear as barbaric as the enemy (who, im' sure, if they had such fire power would use it indiscriminately- think of the V-1 bombings of the UK). As for surveillance? I hate it, whether it's drone, phone, or computer. But, we allowed it to happen, the genie is out, so we live with it and trust that it is just the bad guys who get caught.

^ Almost every American sketch comedy show from the late-70s and early-80s, Popeye, Mork & Mindy, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Baron Munchausen, The Fisher King, Toys, Hook, Aladdin (say what you will about the movie, but his genie is THE genie), Mrs. Doubtfire, The Birdcage (remake), Good Will Hunting, Patch Adams, What Dreams May Come (I liked it at least), One hour Photo, Insomnia (remake), and then there's all of his random, unforgetable guest appearance and talk show circuit adlibbing...

Or do you just mean in recent years?