No such thing as God.

[iconoclast]

There's no such thing as God.

[Aedes]

Welcome back to the forum, iconoclast.

[boagie]

Hi Y'all!

"Just think of it! We have come forth from this Earth of ours. And the Earth itself came of a galaxy, which, in turn, was a condensation of atoms gathered in from 'space'. The Earth may be regarded as a precipitation of 'space'. Is it a wonder, then, that the 'laws of that space' are ingrained our minds? The philosopher Alan Watts once said, "The Earth is peopling, as apple tree's 'apple'. People are produced from the earth as apples from apple tree's." We are the 'sensing organs' of the Earth. We are the 'senses' of the 'universe'. We have it all right here 'within us'. And the 'deities' that we once thought were 'out there', we now know, were projected out of 'ourselves'. " - Joseph Campbell

Yes indeed, welcome back Iconoclast!!!

[iconoclast]

Thanks, it's good to be back.

Boagie - arguably, no surprise there, given that we are developed by the function or die algorith of evolution in relation to a reality with definite characeristics. What think you?

[boagie]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

Thanks, it's good to be back.

Boagie - arguably, no surprise there, given that we are developed by the function or die algorith of evolution in relation to a reality with definite characeristics. What think you?

iconoclast,

I am afraid I do not understand the statement, perhaps you could rephrase it?



Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark is the third in an annual series of conversations: an ongoing project to foster and promote the use of reason in formulating social policy. This year, we asked participants to propose a Candle -- a potential solution to a problem that they have identified in their area of expertise or informed passion.

In The Demon-Haunted World, Carl Sagan wrote:
Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

At The Science Network, we embrace scientific meliorism (last year's meeting, after all, was entitled Enlightenment 2.0). We support science in its search for solutions. Can we better understand the neural underpinnings of human nature, our decision-making processes, the dynamics of trust and fear and human flourishing?

This U.S. election year, when science and reason in the nation's deliberations have been repeatedly challenged as irrelevant or elitist, and science seems to be estranged from society, Sagan's words sound prophetic -- an alarm call. Beyond Belief: Candles in the Dark is our response

[GoshisDead]

Isn't this like every third discussion on this forum?

[Didymos Thomas]

Isn't this like every third discussion on this forum?

It's not exactly a rare discussion, anyway.

[nameless]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

There's no such thing as God.

All perspectives are correct in themselves. All perspectives are incomplete/limited to one extent or another.
One can but accept your statement as your perspective. In and as such, you are correct; at least in the moment that it was conceived. Perhaps your perspective will be different another moment. Perhaps you might then state, "There is a God!" That would also be 'correct', also 'incomplete.
Think of the blind men surrounding the elephant. One feels the tail and declares the elephant snake-like, with hair. Correct, but limited.
Another feels the leg and declares the elephant to be like a great tree... Correct, again, but...
We have learned to follow the urgings of the ego and to 'identify' with our concepts, and thus to argue who is 'right', leaving everyone else 'wrong'. Perhaps a more pragmatic and mutually beneficial approach would be for all to consider as many perspectives (all 'correct' to one extent or another) as possible in order to gain a 'better' understanding of elephant?
Peace

[Aedes]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

There's no such thing as God.

I'm not trained in formal logic, but from a logical point of view what I understand this statement is not tenable. You have the verb "to be" in this sentence (contracted into "there's") and this is the 'is' of existence.

So what you're saying is that 1) there exists a totality of things, and 2) none of these things is God.

For this statement to be possible you would need to know all things.

And since I can point to the movie "Bruce Almighty", in which God is a character, I can indeed assert that there is such a thing as God, at least in that case.

[iconoclast]

nameless, Couldn't disagree more. I'm not a blind man sexually assaulting an elephant and pretending it's a coconut palm. There's an actual reality we are able to have valid knowledge of, and apply that knowledge to create technologies that function. Were reality somehow otherwise, life could not have evolved because evolution could not have chanced upon a consistent chain of best answers to the questions posed by the environment. We could not apply scientific principles to make technology for there would be no such principles.
I'm not trained in formal logic either - but, for reality to have definite characterisitics, everything that exists must be consistent with everything else that exists. If God exists - by definitiion a supernatural entity, then reality does not. Because reality exists - ergo, God does not.

But anyhow, i have a question.


Extinction – does it matter?

As a consequence of action in the course of religious, political and economic ideologies inconsistent with the scientific facts of the reality we inhabit, humankind will become extinct. But does it matter? Even if we were to strive to survive the energy crisis, climate change, over-population and environmental degradation by accepting valid knowledge of reality as the rule for the conduct of human affairs – as far as we know, we are trapped on Earth. Even the nearest stars are incredibly distant – 4.5 light years, which is to say 4.5 years at 186,000 miles per second.
Einstein stated that accelerating mass to the speed of light requires an infinite amount of energy – which we don’t have, and so the nearest stars are a lot further away than any 4.5 years. Indeed, traveling at about 50,000 miles an hour, it took Voyager over 11 years just to clear the solar system.
Thus, no matter how long the species lives – it doesn’t seem likely that we will have purposes beyond those we have here. Without the prospect of expanding into the universe extinction might just be the ‘absolute’ we are so clearly searching for in our religious, political and economic ideologies. In scientific terms, of course, there’s no reason why humankind might not live another million years, or more – but in these terms, to what end? Is it enough just to walk in the sunshine?