I don’t understand, what should be our "end " or purpose in mind when being unselfish? There seem to be many motives, from seeing the other as a child of God, to whatever makes Marxists pity their neighbor. Are you saying the Marxist athiest would have more approval from God than the believer does, due to motive – since the Marxist is not thinking of God?
Can you tell me where to get heroin? – if it will help me get out of this world.
Charitate,
mrn
GOD DAMNIT! i just wrote this entire post, it took me like half an hour, and that DASTARDLY DEVIL made me delete it!!! all i did was pick up the keyboard and accidentally hit alt f4 or ctrl x or some GOD DAMN SHIT FUYCK AND IT FUCKING DELETED IT ALL
GOD HATES ME AHH HOW CAN HE BE REALL!!! WHEN BAD THINGS OF ANY KIND HAPPEN, THAT COMPLETELY NEGATES THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF A CONSCIOUS CREATOR IN EVERY POSSIBLE WAY IMAGINABLE!!!
anyway,
Dr Satanical, you totally refused to address the point. so ill say it again:
you dont believe in god. thats because you live in a universe where god doesnt want you to be sure that he exists. is that so difficult to believe? god created a universe where he completely wants you to believe that his existence is unneccesary for you to be able to imagine your origins.
you either believe that god doesnt exist, or you beleive that god created a place where he provides absolutely no evidence of his existence, his motives or his influence. dont say that you believe the former more than the latter, because this is a logical exercise, it is literally impossible for you to believe one of these more than the other. no? yes.
so why would a sadistic torture monger create a world that is full of pain like ours and not help us? there are probably a few possible reasons, but one is easy to imagine. he wants us to do things that are truly selfless selfless.
im going to write this very succinctly (upon previewing… maybe ill go on a tangent or five. dont quote the tangents unless you respond specifically. so that when you quote it, you cant use my verbosity to deter potential readers):
THIS IS WHY GOD DID IT:
if he wants us to do selfless actions, our knowledge of his existence would taint our ability to do selfless actions. if we knew that he existed, then we would assume that he wants us to do something for him. we would assume that there is some purpose for our existence besides simply helping ourselves. (especially since doing nothing but helping ourselves never ends in true happiness. seriously, dont tell me you really believe it will make you happy. actually, do tell me that and ill start a new thread)
(upon previewing further, damn the tangents are the main point of this thread. but its all valuable and nobody responds to it, so i have to say it again. just read it and dont dismiss it. but the main point was mainly made so far. think of what an invisble gods mission might be and what mission might be ruined if god was not so invisible. if you beleive thats god mission might be this invisible one, then you can beleive that god has a reason to remain invisible)
i believe that he wants us to do selflessness, but i will admit that there is surely more than one thing that would be negatively influenced by our knowledge of his existence.
the point that im trying to make is that if we knew god existed, it would influence our behavior. we would know that a big scary man is watching us, and that it created us for some purpose. it created us in order to do something.
what would you do differently if, all of a sudden, right in the middle of your eyes, it said “i am god and im totally real” and you went to your friends, and then to your optometrist, and they all said “yeah dude me too!! watch the news! everyone sees it!!!”
what would you think? would it change your behavior? dont be a bad ass, you know it would change your behavior.
what do we know for sure is good in this universe? dopamine and serotonin, and whatever other brain chemicals make humans feel good. i cant imagine any other decisions that a human would make besides the fact that dopamine etc needs to be produced as much as possible.
what do you humans think is so great about life? cars? video games? fuck no! its called dopamine and seratonin. without them, you are a pathedic robot and you are depressed off your ass.
so when god beams into all of our eyeballs at the same time that he exists, you just might come to the conclusion that he created us for a purpose. if your deductive abilities are less than pathedic, you will realize that he wants us to create dopamine, since that is the one single solitary thing that we humans can actually consider good. and ALL OTHER THINGS ARE A SECONDARY CONTRIBUTOR.
fast cars give you, the rich white man, dopamine. fame, fortune, boobs, they give you one thing: happy brain chemicals.
now imagine you have been receiving somewhat happy brain chemicals for the past twenty years from the same five things: girls, cars, drugs, fame, and the knowledge that you have more money, cars, girls fame and drugs than that stupid bitch who decided to donate his otherwise fruitless life to a quaker mission in somalia.
imagine that you can measure the levels of happy chemicals in your brain. you have the machine strapped up to you at the moment that you receive your first piece of amazing fortune. when you get that mansion, your brain lights up that mri like its never been lit up before. when you get that first fast car, it lights up slightly less. and when that money loving whore says she loves you, it lights up considerably less.
if you doubt the idea that wealth creates less happiness the more of it you have, you should talk to some rich people and see how happy they are.
anyway, what if you hooked that mri up to a somalian after you irrigated his land? after you built him a nice house? after you gave him and his children a computer that plays the latest video games? mri’s dont measure aneurysms.
if you knew god existed, you would hopefully come to the conclusion that he wanted as much dopamine to be created as possible. if you knew that the xtian god was real, you would know FOR SURE that he wanted as much dopamine to be created as possible.
why would god want dopamine to be created?
god wants selfless actions. not dopamine. what im saying is so simple, you just have to completely deny all religions. which i dont think should be too hard for you atheists.
i keep going about this in somewhat roundabout ways. here is the straightforward, again: if god told you what his mission was in a straightforward manner, his mission would be impossible to accomplish!!!
he wants selflessness. selflessness requires that we care only about others and their dopamine. not our own, not our own eternal redemption. only others.
we have to stop caring about providing ourselves with happiness and more about providing others with much more than we are currently capable of accomplishing. if we look at the idea of dopamine, and if we care about dopamine, then this is clearly the mission.
if you dont care about dopamine, then you have failed to create as much dopamine as possible. you wont be as happy as a person who devotes his abnormal and no-longer-usefull amount of dopamine to himself.
its called a mid life crisis. middle age men raise children and still own a ton of cash. they dont know how to spend it and they still go to work and gain more of it. they dont know what to do with it. they buy stupid cars and fancy crapola. they are STILL not happy. they see therapists.
in the burka thread, people are talking about men are meant to be solitary animals, out for the good of nobody but themselves. wrong: chimpanzees live in communities and they do good for the community. the fact that they have sex with more than one is irrelevant. they are a part of a community for their entire lives. they contribute actions to the community. they are, absolutely not solitary animals. get it through your mistaken heads, chimps are not solitary, they just happen to be polygamous.
damn, so many tangents. but all very relevant. i apologize. HERE IS THE POINT once again: if god made you know that he existed, then you would look for a purpose, and you would do that purpose in the name of god, NOT IN THE NAME OF THE PURPOSE.
the purpose just might be a few things. my amazing imagination is currently limited to only one thing: selflessness. if we knew god existed, one of the things we would immediately think that he wanted was selflessness. and if we did this selflessness after we knew of his existence, it would no longer be selfless and god would have failed his mission. that is why we dont know for damn sure that god exists. that is why god throws us curveballs here and there and every fucking where.
period the end. moving on.
of course you would!!
thats the way god made this universe. he wants us all to scramble to achieve as much as we can for ourselves. and then, at the age of 45, you will be slammed with the realization that you have accomplished exactly nothing. or you have accomplished a lot, kids who will grow up to live nice lives a nice house, fast cars, and everything you can hope for.
and yet you continue to live. and youve experienced all the happiness that you are capable of experiencing. and yet you still go to work and rake in hundreds of dollars a day. for WHAT!?!? what does it do? the hundreds of dollars of work that you do every single day? does it feed your heroin addiction? buy you increasingly bigger tvs? increasingly faster cars? more and more children who need college educations? WHAT?!?!?
NOTHING! but thats a totally different thread. and you have totally dodged the entire point of this thread.
you didnt specify who wants to live life. so youre wrong. its in compliance with you, mr millionaire, living your disgusting life to its materialistic fullest, yes. but life living all life to its fullest? human beings living life to their fullest? i dont think so.
right before you buy your one hundredth car, i want you to call me, 484-432-1559 (call me im lonely), and i will tell you what it felt like for me to spend a paltry $10,000 to spruce up my local palestinian neighborhood with irrigation. and i want you to compare their amazing ululations to the joy you feel when you buy any car that costs $10,000. compare the dopamine and seratonin that is put into the brains. i dont think youll be surprised. if you are, shame on you.
IM STILL ON A TANGENT!! this thread is about one thing:
HERE IS WHY YOU CAN STILL BELIEVE IN GOD NO MATTER WHAT, I MEAN ANYTHING AT ALL!!!!!!
:
god wants you to be able to not beleive in him. in fact, he prefers it:
if you dont believe in god and you do selfless acts anyway, that is a truly selfless act.
[i]if you believe in god and you do an act that helps someone else, you are merely following the rules that he specified in order to gain your heavenly reward. and that is called selfISHness.
in order for true selfless actions to take place, you must NOT be anticipating a divine reward. you must be doing your actions for one single solitary reason: TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE. PERIOD.[/i]
in order to do the latter action instead of the former, you must NOT believe that god will reward you for your actions.
[i]in order for the latter action to be possible, god must PREVENT his existence from being entirely provable[/i]
if gods existence was entirely provable, then a very large number of selfless actions, probably all, would be in the name of god and, subsequently, the name of the divine retribution of the selfless. they would NOT be in the name of pure selfless donation.
[size=200][i]THAT IS WHY YOU DONT THINK GOD EXISTS[/i][/size]
because god doesnt want you to think that he exists. he wants you to do actions that are truly selfless. if you believed in him and devoted your resources to others As A Result Of Your Faith In Him, then that Would Not be Selfless, because you would be anticipating his reward, you would be doing actions that can be technically classified as selfless simply for the benefit of your own, selfIsh divine reward, not PURELY for the benefit of your beneficiaries. in order for an act to be selfless, you have to anticipate that god possibly doesnt give a shit what you do. if you know for sure that he does care, then your actions are viewed with an entirely different light!
additionally! he might not want selfless actions!!! he might want something Entirely Different!!!
My Point is that god just might want humans to do a deed that will be impossible once we know that he exists. thats why we dont know he exists. because if we knew that he exists, our actions would change. thats why he gave us a universe where we can constantly doubt his existence!!!
DO YOU GET IT??? ITS SO SIMPLE!!!
and that is why you are agnostic and not atheist. you cannot prove that god doesnt exist because i can always say “god did that so that you would think that he doesnt exist, because if you knew he existed, his mission would be impossible”
its so simple. dont think too much. i know i wrote way too much, but its not that hard, i just happened to touch on a lot of topics. respond at length.
Wouldn’t it be an even greater mercy to wish for others their divine reward?
of course you would!!
thats the way god made this universe. he wants us all to scramble to achieve as much as we can for ourselves. and then, at the age of 45, you will be slammed with the realization that you have accomplished exactly nothing. or you have accomplished a lot, kids who will grow up to live nice lives a nice house, fast cars, and everything you can hope for.
and yet you continue to live. and youve experienced all the happiness that you are capable of experiencing. and yet you still go to work and rake in hundreds of dollars a day. for WHAT!?!? what does it do? the hundreds of dollars of work that you do every single day? does it feed your heroin addiction? buy you increasingly bigger tvs? increasingly faster cars? more and more children who need college educations? WHAT?!?!?
NOTHING! but thats a totally different thread. and you have totally dodged the entire point of this thread.
[/quote]
I didn’t miss the point, I’m just pointing out a mistake. To the surprise of most people, I like you drunk ramblings… I just dont think this one is particularly sound.
I get what you’re saying, but ok… look at at it this way, I can be an altheist and still give away all my money… just because I want to promote net happiness doesn’t mean there is a God. This argument is tricky (and maybe I’ve missed a part in the drunk talk) because it’s predicated on the fact that God doesn’t want us to know he exists. So that allows you to sorta fall back onto that. It’s a good idea, but it doensn’t really prove anything.
But I do like the rational behind why God doesn’t show himself. Keep drinking, I’ll keep smokin… hopefully the ideas will continue to flow as well
I did adress it, and since you totally refused to acknowledge that, Ill say it again 
I don’t have to ‘believe’ either of the choices in that particular bifurcation.
You are hitting a logician with a logical fallacy, your fase dichtomy is powerless against me.
Future Man,
You could be right but not for the reasons you think.
If your whole system relies on the fact that God can’t be known to human beings in order for human beings to succeed in taking self-less actions, then by the very fact that you know that to verify its possibility, makes you inhuman. For if you knew that you weren’t supposed to know you would negate the truth through the knowledge of it.
I will say that the best route to piety is asceticism. If there was a benevolent God then life would be a chance to graduate, a series of gradations toward harmlessness and perfection, and the most certain way to do this is through an almost complete abandonment of any relations to other beings. The Buddhist Monk who has swore a vow of celibacy and limits his action to meditiation among others is of the highest rank.
The test of self-lessness is constitution and endurance. Suffering enough to earn endurance and character, modesty, indifference. Wanting no more because of needing no more.
Some call this nihilism. Some say there is the possibility of moderation. To a point, yes, but total resignation exhibits no Will, and that is impossible in this world. The final graduation is the transcendence into pure Mind by a Willfull disembodiment; the power to Will one’s eternity and not need the body-- is a metaphorical way to put it. The goal is to lose the Will by denying it. Absolute homelessness and no possessions. No desires. A readiness and anticipation to pass on at any moment.
Man that’s gotta be hard.
But anyway, nobody is going to do that, except for the hard-core dudes in the Tibeten mountains.
Future man isn’t human… he’s a secret being from the year 2085
it proves one thing, in a very Impish sort of way:
you cant say, for sure, that god absolutely does not exist. THATS IT!!!
THATS IT!!!
YOU ARE AGNOSTIC! IM TALKING TO YOU! whoever is reading this right now, you cannot logically be an atheist after reading the previous posts.
i am NOT PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF GOD!!!
i am disproving the validity of atheism and forcing everyone to recognize that they are either agnostic, deistic or irrational. its simple.
the reason why you cant say for sure that god exists is because he has shown no proof that he exists. the reason why you cant say for sure that god does not exist is because there are perfectly valid reasons why he doesnt want to show proof that he exists.
with this thread, i am merely illustrating an example or two of why god might create a universe and not make his existence known.
i will logicianify you so hard you cry. this is not the place because its too simple. theres no dichotomy. you dont have to believe that god either exists or doesnt. you just cant possibly say that he doesnt, for sure. thats it. im merely providing a plausible reason for why he doesnt want you to believe in him. you cant possibly say im wrong, therefore, you cant possibly say that you are atheist.
you can go ahead and say that my theory is plausible but you dont believe it, but you definetely cant say that my theory, and any theory of god is impossible. therefore, you cant say that you disbelieve god in the same way that theists believe in him. therefore you cant say that you are atheist. am i misinterpreting the meaning of the word atheist?
impressively perceptive. indeed, when i talk to st peter at the gates, he will bring this up and give me ten, very unfair, demerits. a person who is a purely illogical atheist and accomplishes the same dopamine that i have is most certainly more righteous than i am.
however, i think i will get at least ten gold stars for helping ilp noobie atheists to realize that they have no logical basis for denying gods existence and they should be creating as much happy brain chemicals as possible, since that is the only true measure of religion.
the best way to create the most harmlessness, perfection (and ill add, a little thing called happiness) in the WORLD, is through abandoning everyone and running into a little hole to trip out imaginaing you are a navel?
ill say that god certainly invented meditation as a way to relax stressed out humans. i will go out on a very tiny, secure limb and say that monks are no better than heroin addicts. they contribute nothing to society. they sit in a hole and fucking trip out on some shit. so what if they dont happen to put chemicals into themselves? whats the damn difference?
thats not piety, its god damned selfishness in one of its most disgusting forms. the only difference between it and other kinds of disgusting selfishness is that it doesnt require the exploitation of others to accomplish (which is somewhat admirable). sure, if everyone meditated like a tibetan, the world would be better.
but people are idiots and god gave them shitty lives where they are incapable of appreciating this gift. he made people who commit sins that create children, perhaps too many children. he made places that dont have enough food and water. and he made america with way the hell too much food and water. if every american just sat on their ass and imagined their bellybutton, the world would not contain as much HAPPY BRAIN CHEMICALS as it would if those people got off their ass and did something.
that is the way he created the world. more importantly, he did not make it specifically clear to those poor africans that all they have to do is not have sex and imagine their own belly button in order to be happy. therefore, its up to us to create THE MOST HUMAN HAPPINESS. if you dont think human happiness is the goal, i dont think you understand your own brain, or i think you are discounting the possibility that god might have created the unfair universe so that you may spread your own happiness to those who need it. thats it.
i accomplished a small degree of this long ago. i look down on the materialistic desires of almost all those around me. and yet, people suffer because they have no clue what im talking about. we cant just expect them to stop wanting things because they do want them. things like water and food. i mean, they could just ‘happily’ meditate themselves to death at the age of 20 days, but that would ‘suck’.
Your little bedtime story hardly qualifies as a theory.
A theory requires some kind of evidence to support it. Your fable contains none.
I can say I am an atheist all I like.
An atheist is someone that has no-theism…like the word says.
An agnostic is just a disenfranchised christian, teetering on the edge of the mild psychosis that is deity worship.
Atheism, as I have said before, is the only rational position.
Satan you are wrong.
How can you deny the possibility that there exists a god who provides no evidence of his existance? Because in every single way the universe would not differ a single jot from a universe where there didnt exist a god at all. All you can claim to have is blind faith in the lack of existance of god. Ive been convinced, im agnostic now because it really is the only valid position when considering the facts. The exact same evidence that says god does not exist, is exacally the same evidence that he does exist, just doenst show it.
Nope, the idea of god was clearly invented. With enough knowledge of history, you can watch as religions metamorphose and evolve, concepts and ideas get plaguerized, etc etc.
Knowing what religions is, and where it came from, and how it changes and is utilized for power, it becomes very dificult to give the ideas it presents any real credibility. It is nothing but the ramblings of men with a penchant for fantasy, used by the clever to control the stupid.
To even consider that any current theistic dogma might actually be true is rather silly, and to give it any serious consideration borders on psychosis
I gotta agree with Dr. S. This seems to me like some very clever wording by Mr. McFly, in particular the paragraph I’ve highlighted. The first sentance takes you deep into the hole, and the second sentence allows you to get out, but you’re still at the same place that you started.
Your theory doesn’t discredit athiests in the slightest. Why? Beceause I can say 'I don’t think God exists because there seems like too much evidence to support the existence of God. Like I said before your argument is predecated on the fact that God exists, and we don’t know that he does. ← Don’t read that and say ‘I know… that’s my point!! the fact that we don’t know gives my theory credit’ No… it doesn’t
The fact that we don’t know doesn’t give you any credit, because until we do know for sure I can say I don’t believe in God because… the fart i just had smelled too bad.
You’re saying ‘this proves we can’t say for sure God doesn’t exist’ I’m saying… we’ve known that all along.
but how can you deny the fact that god could simply provide no reason for his existance. how is that denyable? and if it is true then there is NO way to prove that there is or there is not a god. There are no other options here, and I dont see what evidance can point to one being more likley then the other. The fact that religion is rediculous is obvious, simply because it is rediculous doenst make the point go away. Mabye all the religions you speak of just happen to be wrong (after all they cant be all right) and the true one is the as yet undiscovered religion where god wants your happy brain chemicals. and its not discrediting athiests here. Sure you can believe that it is more likley that god doenst exist. Hell i agree with you, i think its pretty doubtful, but if you got yourself a logic machine, and you fed him the evidence, its going to tell you that it could be either way.
If you replace the word “God” with “Giant Purple Planet Eating Spagetti Monsters”, does it still sound plausable?
FutureMan,
You force me to quote myself.
religion is shi ite
and not the kind that worships muhommed’s son in law
im not talking about religion. im talking about what caused the creation of the universe.
im talking about very simple logic. i guess ill have to deduce it into a crappy little syllogism for you to interrogate.
A universe was created
or 2. the cause of the universe created life by coincidence, by the same laws of physics that suck all matter into an area until it explodes and eventually runs out of fuel and turns into an inert ball
if 1. then
what? what would signify the proof of 1.? what would disprove 1.?
if 2. then
what??? what would prove to you that 2. is true?
nothing would prove either!!!
NOTHING!!!
so if neither is true, and you believe neither, which you apparently cant (i have been unable to prove either), what does that mean when you are unable to believe either 1. or 2.?
does your all-encompassing disbelief land you in the category of agnostic? oh i believe that it does. i am under the impression that if you classify yourself as an atheist, then you have PROOF that 2. is true.
if you do not have proof that 2. is true, then you have two options. either you believe 1. is true (which is certainly as zany as believing 2.) or you believe that there is not enough evidence.
if you believe that there is not enough evidence, what does that make you? what is the little name that we have devised to describe you?
agnostic.
you are. dont deny it. if you do deny it, gosh darn prove it already. dont call my completely plausible theories a fairy tale unless you can prove them completely unplausible.
if my theory is plausible, you are an agnostic. im sorry. you just are.
there are few things that i want more than a logical, rational reason why my theory is UNPlausible.
i cant remember the last time i had a logical discussion about anything that wasnt arbitrarily dictated by some damn robot who wanted to exercise the critical thinking of the robots who surround me in the (shudder) real world. you want logic, it spews from my ears when i blow my nose too hard.
why are you atheist? you think all religions are totally wrong? so do i. how does that disprove the possibility that the universe was created consciously? by a thing that doesnt want you to be able to prove his existence? do you realize the logical situation i have created? there IS NO atheism. it is impossible.
i dont want your gosh darn poetic responses. what do you think they accomplish? prove that you are atheist. i want proof. if there is no proof, then that means that you are agnostic. period. thats what atheist means. it means you have proof. right?
Yeah… I see what you’re getting at.
I like the theory, I really do, but the thing is I was always agnostic (at least… until I’ve been old enough to really think about this stuff) and I feel like I’ve already thought about this, I mean… what you’ve said -is- the foundation of agnosticism isn’t it? I mean isn’t your argument a really fancy way of saying – ‘we can’t prove either to be false, so we must place our moral flagpoles somewhere in the middle’
I think the problem here is that perhaps (because I do it sometimes) people refer to the term ‘athiestic’ as saying ‘not believing in god’… when really they mean to say ‘not believing in the Gods religion/history have presented’
I am an agnostic rationally. Rationally! However, there is more to me than my reason. There is also an ethical side to my determinations about this world (My Poetic Response to the world!). On it, I find, that I cannot emotionally believe in a just higher being. And my current philosophical investigations lead me to believe that I cannot even have the ability to know if there is an inherent intelligence in the world because I am not certain that I don’t order everything that I see through my own perceptions.
Again, going back to one of our old clashes: I’m more concerned with focusing on this present life – on what is – making it that much more important because of its probablistic finitude (in my determined opinion)
By not having a God(s) to believe in I am responsible for the world. Ethics is not dissmissed by me, though it may be dissmissed by other athiests and agnostics, it isn’t by me.
You’re seeking to comfort your emotions (which are in discomfort by the horror of the world) with this idealization. I reject the idealization because I am not justified in believing in it and instead, seek to do my best to change the current world without any thought of reward. Who is being more altruistic? If you think you are, then you need to immediatly stop holding on to the idea that any good you do in this world matters – then see if you can be altruistic, without any teleological purpose.
The reason I don’t like using the word agnostic is that I still hold hope of progress. One day we might know the universe well enough to either no longer have room for God or to find one.
Really we’ve already disproven any of those nice old Gods with a sun chariot.
Time is just another dimension in the end, we might contrive a way to see our own universe being created. Or we might be able to ourselves create a universe (whos side that proves is hard to say.) In any case, we might know one day. Until that point I’m a provisional Atheist.
Maybe that’s a nice new catagory: Provisional Atheist
I kinda like the sound of it.
I agree