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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 09:57AM

“Either God can do nothing to stop catastrophes like this, or he doesn't care to, or he doesn’t exist. God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary. Take your pick, and choose wisely." ~Sam Harris

I'll take, "Why assume god has a penis Sam?", for a thousand!

I mean isn't it possible that "god" is just what we call "Nature" and we are out of balance with it, which is the reason this virus jumped to humans, to tell us eating endangered species is like killing the canary in the coal mine?

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Posted by: Lethbridge Reprobate ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 10:09AM

I'll put $10 on imaginary.

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Posted by: Greyfort ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 10:10AM

"God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary."

That's pretty much how I see it.

Nature certainly does play a part in our everyday lives, but it's certainly not a god. It just is. Humans often have a habit of messing things up, unfortunately.

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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 08:52PM

Greyfort Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "God is either impotent, evil, or imaginary."
>
> That's pretty much how I see it.
>
> Nature certainly does play a part in our everyday
> lives, but it's certainly not a god. It just is.

You're far more certain about that than Einstein was, or Sagan.

“The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by 'God,' one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.” Sagan

I am a Pantheist, in the same sense as Einstein/Spinoza, who believed nature was divine.

Like Hawking said in his final book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Ch 1. Is There A God?", "When I use the word, 'God', I mean it in the way Einstein used it, in the impersonal sense of the word, to mean, the laws that govern nature. So to 'know the Mind of God' is to understand the laws that govern nature. I predict we will 'know the Mind of God' by the end of this century."

> Humans often have a habit of messing things up,
> unfortunately.

True. I think one distinct possibility is that Mother Nature sees us as the disease and sent Covid 19 as an antidote to the disease that's fucking up the planet for all the other species who've been here a hell of a lot longer than us. So it really is true that the meek shall inheirit the earth.

Animals like, extremaphiles, like tardigrades, who have survived the past 5 mas extinctions, will be here long after we are long gone. So will the phages, who are already the most successful organism on the planet, even though they're not technically 'alive', much less, 'species'.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/04/2020 08:54PM by schrodingerscat.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 11:24AM

George Carlin was more of a prophet than any of the Mormon “prophets”. Maybe the Earth really will shake us off like a bad case of fleas. And maybe God really doesn’t give a shit. He’s like an office temp with a bad attitude. Or he went on vacation. Maybe on one of Kolob’s famous beaches, same place he went during the Holocaust.

I don’t believe in the same God that Atheists don’t believe in. But I do believe in a transcendent divine. When I first saw Charlton Heston’s Moses say “He is not flesh but spirit... the light of eternal mind”, I bristled. But that was a lot closer than anything the Mormons had. We experience God, then try to explain the experience.

For many decades, I could say that I know God lives. There was a time after my shelf collapsed that I wasn’t sure, but of course God lives. But I didn’t make the connection, the why of it. God lives through me. That clears up a lot of misconceptions. Rusty and his clueless friends can profane God all they want. I don’t believe in their banal God. But I do believe in mine.

Einstein lived in a box of space time. God is there, but not just there.

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Posted by: Backseater ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 10:21AM

Check out the 1958 play "J.B." by Archibald MacLeish, derived from the book of Job:

If God is God, he is not good;
If God is good, he is not God.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.B._(play)

But when God spoke to Job out of the whirlwind he said basically, (paraphrasing):

"I'm God and you're not; and you wouldn't understand, anyway."

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 03:09PM

And Job said to God, I will suffer anything and never stop loving you.

He had some codependency issues.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2020 03:13PM by bradley.

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Posted by: summer ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 10:30AM

But evidently if he concentrates really, really hard, he can sometimes come up with missing car keys. So, there's that.

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Posted by: CateS ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 01:16PM

That’s St. Anthony.

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Posted by: dogbloggernli ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 10:44AM

schrodingerscat Wrote:

> I mean isn't it possible that "god" is just what
> we call "Nature" and we are out of balance with
> it, which is the reason this virus jumped to
> humans, to tell us eating endangered species is
> like killing the canary in the coal mine?


So imaginary is your answer too.

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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 11:06AM

dogbloggernli Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> schrodingerscat Wrote:
>
> > I mean isn't it possible that "god" is just
> what
> > we call "Nature" and we are out of balance with
> > it, which is the reason this virus jumped to
> > humans, to tell us eating endangered species is
> > like killing the canary in the coal mine?
>
>
> So imaginary is your answer too.

Nature ain't imaginary, its natural.
Evil is a human construct that doesn't exist in nature.

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Posted by: dogbloggernli ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 11:39AM

God is a human construct that doesn't exist in nature either.

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Posted by: Elder Berry ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 04:33PM

Touche

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Posted by: Mother Nature ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 11:50AM

Dear Hindlegger (My name for what you call humans and I call my biggest mistake.)


I am tired of the insults. Mostly I am tired of the insults being so mundane and making no sense whatsoever. The connection you are trying to make is at best just a conceit and at worst just plain dumb.

Go plant something in my honor if you like me so much. Go help some animals and I'll let you call me that awful word a few more times before I really do something about it.

God? How many steps down the ladder are you trying to pull me?


The Beauty and the Fury, Mother of all Mothers,

NATURE


PS.

I'd tell you to have a nice day
but that isn't up to you.
Its' up to me.
So drop the God stuff
and we'll see.

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Posted by: Kathleen ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 11:59AM

Wow, Mother Nature, you really CAN’T be fooled !!
:D

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Posted by: Mother Nature ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 12:36PM

Kathleen. Nice to see you pop in. I know you are waiting patiently for you Zinnias to pop up. Guess what? It's going to be on Tuesday!

Now I'm off. Feel like erupting a volcano today. Always gives me a buzz.

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Posted by: Kathleen ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 12:56PM

Tuesday ????

I better stay home that day ... oh, wait ...

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 03:30PM

Laughing.

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Posted by: dagny ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 01:38PM

Thanks, Mother Nature. It must be frustrating for people to try to change your name to an imaginary being God all the time (in thread after thread after thread).

I understand your frustration. You must be tired of so many humans damaging so much of your work.

I suppose you are preparing a drought and famine for us. I hope we can get enough toilet paper.

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Posted by: Done & Done ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 01:45PM

I give you leaves. I give you corn cobs. But no. Not good enough for the hindleggers. Got to turn nature's call into a "for profit."

Kind of like spirituality--used to be so natural. But once again, the hindleggers had to go and find a way to merchandize something I was already giving for free.

I'll give you a pass on my next famine, dagny. Just cuz.

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Posted by: Mother Nature ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 01:47PM

D&D is my secretary in case you are wondering why he popped up.

You should see what I have done with his garden. Pays to be nice to Mother.

M

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Posted by: Kathleen ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 02:00PM

Mother Nature,


I love that smell you attached to rain today. Nice accessory.

Looking out for one of those squirrels you put in my yard.


Thanks.

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Posted by: Dave the Atheist ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 02:03PM

Isn't it possible that huge spiders could crawl out of your ass ?

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Posted by: dagny ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 02:05PM

Be careful what you wish for, Dave. Maybe you meant hamsters.

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Posted by: Dave the Atheist ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 02:08PM

We're playing the "isn't it possible" game again.

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Posted by: dagny ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 02:16PM

Yep

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 03:31PM

Hamsters?!

You, Earth Mamma, and Kathleen have me in stitches right now.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 02:53PM

Why are imaginary Gods a bad thing? You don’t remember Sesame Street? My favorite imaginary God is Donald Trump because he’s hilarious.

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Posted by: Kathleen ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 03:30PM

So, Shcrodinger'scat,

I'm wondering. If Mother Nature (whom you call God) is off throwing a load of C-4 down a volcano just now, are we supposed to like fire and brimstone ?

I'm not sure what emotion you are trying to evoke here.

I personally have good memories of molten rock and sulphur, but not everybody does.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 03:41PM

C-4 would burn, not detonate. Throw in a barrel of water, then you have something.

How do Californians think about “the big one”? Do they live with the possibility? Because if it’s too much they can move. The possibility of sudden death is the price of living there. Nobody tells you you can’t.

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Posted by: Kathleen ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 03:49PM

bradley Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> The possibility of
> sudden death is the price of living there.



The possibility of sudden death is the price of living, period.

I wasted a lot of time being afraid of such stuff. Diabetes is higher on the list of things that are gonna get me.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:14PM

I’ll probably go like Monson. All of those security details and bulletproof cars, and it was the Diet Pepsi that got him. Although someone who drinks stuff that tastes like that probably doesn’t have much to live for.

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Posted by: Mother Nature ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 03:59PM

Oh Kathleen. I see you've been delving into the mysteries again. Love it. I encourage exploration,---unlike the the Hindlegger's gods. The more you discover about me the better we will get along.

Nobody likes fire and brimstone. But like humans, the earth sometimes need to relieve some pressure. All the toilet paper in the world won't clean up the lava though. Keep hoarding it for yourselves. That is so cute.


I doubt gathering all the Alka-Seltzer in the world would have any effect, but may be fun to throw down the next active volcano as a bunch of Hindlegger celebrities sing a song they have made up for the occasion.

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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 04:17PM

I'm just pointing out the problem of Atheism, which, ironically, Sam Harris eloquently pointed out, back when he threw cold water on the New Atheism Movement, with his '07 address to the Atheist Alliance International Conference, "The Problem With Atheism".
The main problem being, atheism is just a reaction to a naive world view. It only exists in relation to a false premise. Without "Theism" there would be no "Atheism".
We didn't start identifying ourselves as Asantaists when we figured out Santa wasn't real, so why identify yourself as an Atheist when you figure out God isn't real?

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Posted by: Done & Done ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 04:26PM

Sam Harris neither interests me or speaks for me. The many atheists I know don't even know who he is--or care. We don't even talk about it. What is to say about nothing?

My atheist friends didn't "react to a naive world view.

You, Shroedie, are reacting to a naive view of atheists onto whom you have projected your own false premise.

Telling someone else what they think, telling them you know them better than themselves, is the rudest action you can take and you usually add a side of offensiveness as well.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:21PM

Atheists have friends?

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:29PM

It's on an hourly basis.

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Posted by: Done & Done ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 04:23PM

You can rent anything nowadays, bradly. Everybody has their price luckily.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 05:23PM

I'm agnostic about that.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 04:29PM

> Without "Theism" there would
> be no "Atheism".

Not true. Without theism there would still be atheism. There would be no word "atheist" because it was the natural state of humanity and would require no label.

Don't confuse the lack of a word with the nonexistence of a trait.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:34PM

Denial of God is a straw man. The Atheist philosophy can be summed up as “I don’t know what God is, but I’m pretty sure that isn’t it.”

The problem is with people using it as a crutch, as Neil DeGrass Tyson complains about. You can’t claim “no God” while at the same time denouncing the “god” adherents without being as hypocritical as them.

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:38PM

So, both sides are engaging in moral hypocrisy! Doesn't that create a natural balance?

I believe in the Bell-Shaped Curve more than I don't believe in ghawd(s). The Church of Things Will Happen But I Don't Know to Whom, SA


(SA is the Spanish form of Inc.)

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:57PM

Although for the last few centuries a raging epidemic of self denial has been with us. This Atheism business is a form of self denial, like being stuck in Anorexia. How do realize I Am without stepping stones?

How would I have made it to see the transcendent oneness of being without the abuses of Mormonism?

What I love about Sam is how he tries so hard to have his cake and eat it too. He embraces meditative practices but calls them non-spiritual. There is a connection to God but there is no God. Whatever works for you, Sam. I love seeing him evolve. He’s so good at sharing.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 02:10PM

I wonder what would have happened if this virus hadn’t come along to save us from ourselves.

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 02:27PM

> This Atheism business is a form of self denial. . .

So God is an atheist?

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Posted by: Dave the Atheist ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 04:30PM

yet more of your bogus strawmen

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Posted by: Roy G Biv ( )
Date: April 06, 2020 12:30PM

>> "We didn't start identifying ourselves as Asantaists when we figured out Santa wasn't real, so why identify yourself as an Atheist when you figure out God isn't real?"

Because no one gives anyone a hard time about not believing in Santa.

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Posted by: Vortigern ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 04:31PM

I prefer the "impotent" option, but to a less extreme extent. The "omnipotence" of God is misunderstood by man. Perhaps God can accomplish all things with sufficient time, but I believe that God must operate under the constraints of time.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 02:34PM

I think God transcends time. That’s the point. We live in this space time illusion that the sages try to tell us isn’t real while our senses are saying it is. That’s why the George Lucas Star Wars universe exploded. Evil being defeated by sensing what is inside of us. Some transcendent divine force that cannot he stopped. It resonated with audiences because it’s real. It’s the existential archetype. You aren’t the divine and nobody else is? Then look inside. Good will always conquer evil because the game is rigged. Love always wins.

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Posted by: bradley ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 02:49PM

I really appreciate the Dawkins view, that nature should be enough and going beyond while trashing nature is blasphemy. I mean it is, or why do religions treat humans the way they do?

But that doesn’t answer fundamental questions about the experience of being. They want say it’s all in your head. What if you know you’re not crazy?

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Posted by: Third of Five ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 05:58PM

I’m not a huge fan of Sam Harris, not that I disagree with him on everything, but I don’t find him interesting, and don’t particularly like him that much.

In my search for meaning in life post-religion I tend to now go to nature, the outdoors, science. If I ever say a prayer, then it is to the universe. Does that mean I believe the universe and nature is god? No, I don’t think so, it’s just a form of spirituality I decided for myself. A bit like doing yoga.
I guess this doesn’t really make much sense. I’ve always tried to balance my heart with my mind, and having rejected religion due to so many things, but basically because of logic, this is what my heart tells me to do.

But what I don’t believe is that Mother Nature is punishing humanity with a virus because we have treated the Earth so badly. Even if it turns out to be our fault, this is a cause and effect situation and not a higher power punishing us.

What I do believe is that this is more evidence for there not being a god. And if there is one, he/she/it isn’t very nice, much like the OT god and the BoM god that we used to read so much about. No thank you. So I’d agree with Sam Harris on this, except I don’t know whether he is imaginary/evil/impotent - there are valid arguments for all- and I don’t have to decide which one either.

Once again, as a relative newbie who hasn’t been posting for the past few months either, I am not naturally familiar with what point you’re (probably obviously) trying to make. I wish that posters would state their arguments more overtly!(Just saying).

It isn’t clear if you believe in god, or whether you agree or disagree with what SH says, only that you don’t like that he assumes god is a male. What I do hear is that you think the virus is the outcome of nature being out of balance, because we’ve mistreated the environment. And of course we have done that.

This is actually a good question. It would be great to start a thread asking people’s views on that and perhaps people being at home will do some research or already have. But there is no way to know that definitely right now?

I don’t naturally understand how this ties into Sam Harris’s atheist statement.

The argument as I understood it, might look like this:
“There IS a god, and this god is NOT evil, is not a figment of our imaginations, nor incapable of helping. Instead, in some way, god is part of Mother Nature and the Earth and this virus is god’s natural way of waking us up so that we change our ways”.

Is this what you mean?

It’s an interesting way of looking at things and everyone is entitled to their views. I personally don’t think the Earth, science, nature, the universe is literally god somehow, and I would be looking at the science and more cautious about views that steer towards a punishing god, of any kind. But there’s nothing wrong with your point of view - if I’ve understood it.

I’m not sure why you worded it the way you did? Not a criticism at all - I’m genuinely curious.

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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 07:19PM

Yes.
I am a Pantheist, in the same sense as Einstein/Spinoza, who believed nature was divine.
Like Hawking said in his final book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions, Ch 1. Is There A God?", "When I use the word, 'God', I mean it in the way Einstein used it, in the impersonal sense of the word, to mean, the laws that govern nature. So to 'know the Mind of God' is to understand the laws that govern nature. I predict we will 'know the Mind of God' by the end of this century."

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Posted by: Third of Five ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 07:30AM

Why did you decide to be a pantheist, as opposed to an atheist, agnostic, monotheist, polytheist or deist?
I’ve heard the argument for being a theist vs an atheist but not for what you believe in, and so this is why I’m curious. How, since leaving mormonism, did you arrive at where you are now?

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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 11:18AM

Third of Five Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why did you decide to be a pantheist, as opposed
> to an atheist, agnostic, monotheist, polytheist or
> deist?
> I’ve heard the argument for being a theist vs an
> atheist but not for what you believe in, and so
> this is why I’m curious. How, since leaving
> mormonism, did you arrive at where you are now?

After 9-11 I went from Theist straight to Nihilist. The first thing I said was, "Neitzsche was right, God is dead." I rejected the kind of tribalism that led to 9-11. I found myself in a deep, dark, lonely, depressing hole I had to climb out of, for my own sake and for the sake of my children. I wanted to offer them some kind of hope for the future besides, we're all fucked, the world is fucked, life is meaningless and pointless. I had to find some hope, some meaning.
So the search was on. I read like a friend. I read the biographies of men I admired, who had alternate world views, Jefferson, Franklin, Darwin, Gandhi, Jung, Emerson, Thoreau, Einstein. Gandhi's, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Worked for me as a moral framework. It was hopeful and didn't depend upon any kind of group think or identity.
I liked Jefferson and Franklin's Deism, but it depended upon a personal God to explain our origins, which seemed unnecessary to me, given what we have learned about the universe and our origins over the past 200 years. Einstein's impersonal, Cosmic god (little 'g'), Nature, seemed like it aligned with my evolving beliefs. I read a great book called, "The History of Doubt" and what really stood out to me about it was Epicureanism.Not only did Epicurious figure out non-deterministic atomic physics 300 years before Christ, he also came up with the law of reciprocity, aka, the golden rule, which also worked for me. I also liked the Nature god of the Stoics, especially Marcus Aurelius, Logos. It seemed a lot like the, "Great Spirit" god of the Native Americans and the pre-monotheist/patriarchal god of Judeo Christianity.
I like the nature god of the Zen Buddhists, Tao, the way of Nature. It seemed a lot like Einstein's god, and Sagan's god, the laws that govern mature.
So that is where I find meaning, in an otherwise meaningless, pointless existence.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2020 01:22PM by schrodingerscat.

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Posted by: iceman9090 ( )
Date: April 04, 2020 06:22PM

@schrodingerscat:

God(s) is not something that you discover in nature. God(s) is something that we are told about by our parents and from books such as the Tanakh, bible, koran, mormon.
I don’t know a single scientist who has discovered any gods. It is a ill defined word.
Since it is something that we are told about by our parents, it is a telephone game that reaches back into the past, perhaps 50 ky and more ago ever since people developed their languages.
So, it is normal that different cultures invent different gods.

“Evil is a human construct that doesn't exist in nature.”

==Where does morality come from?
Morality comes from the human mind. We are emotional machines. We dislike pain. We dislike being cheated. We don't like to be kicked, pushed to the ground, having our things that we worked for stolen from us.

The human mind exists because the brain exists. Yes, it is made of a large number of neurons connected together. It is some kind of a processor of data and thought generator. It has about 3 billion neurons and 10 quadrillion interconnections and research shows that it isn't "just" another organ like your arm or legs. The brain is "you".
The brain is a neural circuit.

If we had no emotions, then there would not be laws such as "Don't kill", "Don't steal", "Don't touch my butt".

~~~~iceman9090

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Posted by: Henry Bemis ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 09:55AM

The brain is "you".
The brain is a neural circuit.

COMMENT: In short, you are claiming that "You" are nothing more than the neural circuit(s) of the brain.

In order to subscribe to such a view, you have to be prepared to identify every human cognitive function, and at least in principle, explain such function by appeal to some correlative network or computational function. AI is generally considered to be the best place to look for such correlations.

Now, consider the following comments by Margaret Boden, an expert on AI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Boden

As related to human creativity, Boden noted:

"It follows that a satisfactory neuroscientific account of combinational creativity would identify the various mechanisms evolved for judging relevance. Given that this matter is a verbal/conceptual verison of the notorious frame problem . . . that is a tall order. With respect to the other two forms of creativity, there's more bad news: they are significantly less amendable to neuroscience. That's true in two ways. First, we rarely know all the contraints defining the conceptual spaces of art or science, still less the computational processes required to explore and/or to transform them. Historians of art and musicologists spend lifetimes in attempting to make stylistic constraints explicit, and succeeed only to a very limited degree. Sometimes, they even announce a given style to be unfathomable." (Boden, "Creativity as a Neuroscientific Mystery" in Vartanian et al. Eds. Neuroscience of Creativity (2013)).

Boden also said:

"Shakespeare, Bach, Picasso, Darwin, Babbage, Chanel, the Saatchis, Groucho Marx, the Beatles . . . take your pick. From poets and scientists to advertisers and fashion designers, creativty abounds. . . . How it happens is a puzzle. This need not imply any fundamental difficulty about explaining creativity in scientific terms: scientists take puzzles in their stride. Mysteries, however, are different. If a puzzle is an unanswered question, a mystery is a question that can barely be intelligently asked, never mind satisfactorily answered. Mysteries are beyond the reach of science.
Creativity itself is seemingly a mystery, for there is something paradoxical about it, something which makes it difficult to see how it is even possible. how it happens is indeed puzzling, but that it happens at all is deeply mysterious." (Boden, The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms (1991))

And this is just one example of the disconnect between human cognition and neuroscience. I could go on!

One thing we can notice on the Board is that it is very easy to announce a position, and declare it "scientific," but quite another to defend it. In short, your suggestion that a human being is nothing more than a complex brain is currently unsupportable by scientific evidence when considering many of the details of human cognition. It is a common assumption (Crick's hypothesis) that arguably should be abandoned.

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 10:34AM

It makes a bit of sense that a common assumption exists because there is a basis for 'believing' in it. Just because the Proof is in the Pudding doesn't exist shouldn't mean assumptions can't be made.

Experience teaches that not all assumptions will be proven correct, but one does need a place from which to launch one's inquiries.

It's so easy to assume that one's 'brain wiring' explains why one is the way one is! That it can't be explained isn't a disappointment but rather an enduring challenge.

But I have no problem with the Margaret Bodens of the world, who compile lists of things we don't know. I consider them the necessary sanitation engineers of learning.

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Posted by: Human ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 12:23PM

There’s an extremely large difference between a scientist saying, ‘hey, let’s assume the brain *is* everything, now how do we make experiments to rule this out’, and us plebs walking around saying, ‘hey, the brain is me, I am my brain, the brain made me do it.’ There’s a massive, important difference.

And the reason why some people do walk around assuming that the brain makes them who they are (and not something old-fashioned like ‘character’), is because propagandists pretend that the scientist’s assumed premises are basically concrete fact, in principle, to be born out in time. (Harris, for example, is such a propagandist.)


It doesn’t make any sense to me that people’s first assumption about themselves and who they are is based upon believing the brain accounts for everything that they do and don’t do, see and don’t see, feel and don’t feel, think and don’t think, will and don’t will, etc. That has never before been assumed by humankind. I don’t see any basis for believing it now, at all, *especially* any scientific basis. There is none; (even though billions and billions of dollars are being spent to provide such a basis.)

I think the common assumption is vastly still that there is my body, which includes my brain, and me, which is more than my body and in fact felt to be more *real*. Am I really to assume that that is just my brain tricking me? Perhaps those who propagate the ‘brain is you’ idea are being tricked by their brains. Tricky tricky brain…either way…

Human, too often tricked out of treats

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:12PM

I suspect (because it's the only experience that I have) that "I" am sitting at the controls of my body at a desk just behind my eyes. I can feel me being in control from that position. I can't say if I'm seated at a control panel, or if I'm standing, issuing orders...

I sincerely doubt that the issue of 'Where am "I"?' comes up for intrapersonal discussion. I do have discussions with myself, but that's never been a topic.

Another fun one is being disappointed in yourself... Whom are you castigating and where is the confrontation taking place?

Is the concept of 'self' a conceit? Or is it a natural function? Are there individuals who believe that the 'wet work is the network'?

Probably my lack of belief in a personal existence outside of 'the wetwork' colors the thoughts that come out of me, but I'm certainly not going to argue with myself.

For me, my current ultimate curiosity is whether a sufficiently robust quantum computer could be uploaded with 'me'? It bugs me that people want to tell me that the fact that we don't know an answer precludes us from dreaming one up.

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Posted by: bobofitz ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 02:36PM

Me too. I’m fantasizing having my program of “me” being downloaded into an android. But will I finally be able to sink that 4 footer under pressure?

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 04:09PM

The concept of a 'robot' with the yips simply doesn't compute!!!

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Posted by: pathfinder ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 01:05PM

Why does God have to help? Why does a creator have to intervene in any earthy event or situation. And if he/she doesn’t then he is evil? Why? If a god did intervene then there would be no free agency. Where would the intervention end. Humans are never satisfied. Any intervention from a god would only cause more intervention demands for everything. Then where would we be? An absolutely perfect society? Nope, still discontent for god because it would never be enough.

Our sadness and anger for human death is all based on our feelings within the existence of our knowledge, which is ambient. We don’t know what’s beyond this earthly life, if any existence at all. Is it just over at death? Or are we caterpillars that become butterflies?

The idea that “god” is evil or a fairytale because he / she does nothing is limiting ones thought as to our existence to begin with. If there is no god then death is just that and what happens is just life. If their is a god then then this life is just a phase along our existence and we move on to another one.

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Posted by: schrodingerscat ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 08:19PM

pathfinder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Why does God have to help? Why does a creator have
> to intervene in any earthy event or situation. And
> if he/she doesn’t then he is evil? Why? If a god
> did intervene then there would be no free agency.
> Where would the intervention end. Humans are never
> satisfied. Any intervention from a god would only
> cause more intervention demands for everything.
> Then where would we be? An absolutely perfect
> society? Nope, still discontent for god because it
> would never be enough.
>
> Our sadness and anger for human death is all based
> on our feelings within the existence of our
> knowledge, which is ambient. We don’t know
> what’s beyond this earthly life, if any
> existence at all. Is it just over at death? Or are
> we caterpillars that become butterflies?
>
> The idea that “god” is evil or a fairytale
> because he / she does nothing is limiting ones
> thought as to our existence to begin with. If
> there is no god then death is just that and what
> happens is just life. If their is a god then then
> this life is just a phase along our existence and
> we move on to another one.

^Yep, 99.9%
The 0.1% I would add is the only really good explanation we have for "Dark Matter" is M Theory,
Which Hawking called our greatest hope for a unified theory of everything, or what Einstein called, the Mind of God, which is what he said he wanted to know.
Everything else is details.
Another theory holds that Einstein's Greatest Blunder, turned out to be his greatest discovery, universal constant, Lambda=Dark Energy - Dark Matter.
Every Universe, galaxy, black hole, has a vibration,, cosmic music a frequency, where light slows down long enough to matter, for us to see it, hear it, (radio waves ) to see it, ( tv signals) feel it, infrared, microwaves, to feel it,
This perfect frequency,
Flying 1.3 million mph (600 Kilometers/second) South, toward the Great Attractor
then spreads up again, to become, Ultraviolet, xray, gamma rays, god pearticle.
Singularity.
And out of it super symetry.
We are all stardust
Slowed down
Long enogh to matter.
We are all one
M=E/c^2
Is how Einstein wrote theory of General Realativity at first.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/2020 08:31PM by schrodingerscat.

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Posted by: elderolddog ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 02:07PM

  

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Posted by: Lot's Wife ( )
Date: April 05, 2020 02:29PM

This Dog business is a form of self-denial. . .

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