Because it is not ridiculous too think that in an existance where consciousness exists, that there couldn’t possibly be a higher consciousness behind the creation of existance.
Where as the existance or non existance of fantastical creatures is a triviality at best. The differance between them existing or not in physical form doesn’t give insight into why anything exists.
i can’t agree - we’re now using the word “possible” in very different ways - sure in one sense, anything’s always possible, and i’ve said as much - but in a normal conversational sense, i wouldn’t say that it was possible to build a computer 300 years ago - a million or so prerequisite things had to happen first. hundreds of years’ worth of events had to unfold.
because that doesn’t get the point across - i think us knowing is about as likely as me ever being able to read your mind. simply saying “we don’t know” doesn’t convey that.
I think ignosticism is probably the laziest.
I guess we are theist/atheist/agnostic/ignostic depending on the subject matter, depending on the layer of mind, depending on the mood, time, occasion, and any other factor that may influence us.
So, the same person can be atheist (about something) at the reasoning mind, while fanatic theist at emotional level and ignostic at sensory level, for example.
And the same person may present different spectrum in the morning and the evening, with males and females, younger age and older ages, and so on.
Also, it’s highly interesting to check our own attitude about things we are interested, in this manner, too.
It may help to clarify what we are really interested in, and even underlying desires/fears, etc.
Nah
Perhaps when we think about it, Nah, the ‘laziest’ may occur intermittently depending on one’s moods and the individual him/her -self as you implied at the bottom here. For myself, I am more or less an ignostic - I don’t usually care - but I will admit there are times when I am dealing with something heavy that I feel that old residual temptation to draw toward a god for support. Remember I was raised in a catholic orphanage (much brainwashing and conditioning there 
) But to me that is just plain silly since intellectually I don’t know and I refuse to let my heart squash my reason. At the same time, I would like to search the truth of it and that’s when my agnostic hat comes on or maybe my ‘philosophical’ hat. I suppose, honestly, if I didn’t care somewhat on some level beyond an emotional one (intellectually), I wouldn’t be in here or pondering the big question elsewhere.
But really, for me, the laziest may actually be the one who is so totally indoctrinated within dogma and doctrine and also their narcissistic beliefs (for example, that they are so special and loved in god’s eyes, and not the one who is born in Africa into poverty, disease, and human terror - these do not take the time to question their insane beliefs - will not grow beyond their comfort zone. I’ve met a few of them and it’s like going up against a brick wall.
Really? That’s a really broad spectrum though, Nah. How do they accomplish being an atheist and a fanatic theist at the same time…or even in different moments - that wouldn’t make for such self-awareness I would think. A fanatic theist may have his doubts, lean a bit in moments towards agnostism (if he’s lucky enough too) but a theist flowing into an atheistic perspective is a big leap, isn’t it?
Yes, I wholeheartedly go along with this. I am the reluctant digger after all. But it is a good thing to open up the windows to air out our minds and to sweep that dirt OUT from under the rug. For myself, I do sense a stubborness in me because the way I look at it, if a path on our journey lead nowhere, at least from my point of view, it’s just insanity not to take another one, even if there are many thorns and bushes that need to be thrashed through…which still may lead to nowhere…but we keep taking other paths and who knows? But after all, it is the journey that is more important than the destination…and as far as the god thingy goes, where can that lead to anyway? I’ll stop rambling now. 
Always good talking to you, Nah. 
If “our” consciouness was created by a higher consciousness, who created the higher consciousness ?
It’s ridiculous to believe in anything for which there’s absolutely no evidence.
There is no evidence in favor of fairies and there is no evidence in favor of god. They’re both equally ridiculous. The reason why some people like you get their panties in a bunch when someone makes a comparison like this is because god and religion are extremely pervasive in society and always present in our discourse. It’s so pervasive that it becomes the norm. To the point that when someone says “I’m an atheist” most people get completely dumbfounded, “well, what do you believe in?!??!”
Why is the existence or non existence of fantastical creatures trivial? What is the difference between a fantastical creature and god?
Actually it would give us amazing insight. It would indicate that the laws of physics could somehow be suspended. And that would give more credibility to your claim that god exists.
I make many mistakes. But in this regard, I never said that it was the same. If you read further above, you’ll see that what I said was that it is NOT a 50/50 proposition for me. I mean, obviously, it would depend on the evidence and how it is interpreted. But there is just so much evidence and then again, knowledge which we cannot know at least yet. Take for instance how it was once believed that our Earth was the center of the universe and everything revolved around that. Then Copernicus came and disproved that.
This is where we part ways. Remember, Volchok, I am an agnostic - I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. By some of your statements in here, it seems that you think I’m a believer but that is not true. But I don’t understand what ‘evidence’ you’re speaking about when you say the above. I would like you to give me the evidence you speak about - that is conclusive to the atheist that there is no god. I am not a very scientific person - have very little knowledge though what I do know of the universe both wows me and does point to possibilities though I would never hazard a percentage of it. You do realize don’t you that Einstein later in life believed there was a god though not a personal one. Not that that means anything lol.
Well, that may depend on the individual him/her -self. I don’t go along with the first (that’s just laziness)…my reasoning is the second…"we don’t know everything therefore god is a possibility (I didn’t say a strong one). But how does my way of thinking let go of reason, Volchok. I can only see that if the question was not continuously pursued. If it just stopped there. But maybe my thinking is faulty…but maybe not. Prove it.
Just as an analogy and maybe not a very good one, the law may not be able to prove that a man committed a murder - there is just not enough ‘conclusive’ evidence, but there may still be enough evidence to point to the possibility of it and though he couldn’t be indicted, they would continue to investigate until they gathered more evidence. Otherwise, the law would be admitting that the man DID NOT commit the murder, solely by reason of the fact that there is not enough evidence. How logical would the law be in that respect, Volchok? The fact that we cannot prove a negative, doesn’t really eradicate the reality of something, at least not in my book.
Well, the very fact that there is a universe and the reality of evolution does point in favor of its existence - at least somewhat! Can something come from nothing - can nothing create something?
I’m waiting for your evidence against it. The evidence which you have against - are you speaking more in terms of a personal god, Volchok?
lol - and yet we immediately deny the existence of a god based on that? Are we then to throw the baby out with the bathwater?
It’s ok to admit that we don’t know the answers. Honest inquiry is much better then to pretend to know things.
I can certainly agree with that. That’s the beginning of wisdom and the pursuit of true knowledge in my book.
I do not presume god’s existence or non-existence, Volchok. I question it.
On the other side of the statement you made, perhaps the worst thing you can do is to presume there is no first cause simply because we cannot understand something or many things.
lol. Well then, those are people whose minds are not open to possibilities and they are not very scientific-minded to begin with. I think entertaining the thought that something may have come before the big bang is valid. It’s not exactly like entertaining ideas about fairies or alien species. How can we possibly know that there was nothing before the big bang? But in due time, who knows? How??? Do those people realize how much science has eventually learned/discovered since we walked out of the caves?
In other words, the universe and ourselves are nothing but a fluke, some kind of an accident which has occurred. You can say emphatically say that and yet call yourself a reasonable person (said gently)?
So what’s your more interesting question, Volchok? I’d really like to know.You’re right - it does go along way, a lazy way to me. But perhaps it is not the worst thing in the world - taking that giant leap into the darkness. We all have to have something to believe in. I would dare say that believing in a supernatural being and allowing THAT to change us, help us to grow more humanely and spiritually, makes much more sense to me than believing that alcohol and drugs and promiscuous sex can make our lives more meaningful.
…“During a debate with the biologist Richard Dawkins, Collins stated that God is the explanation of those features of the universe that science finds difficult to explain (such as the values of certain physical constants favoring life), and that God himself does not need an explanation since he is beyond the universe. Dawkins called this “the mother and father of all cop-outs” and “an incredible evasion of the responsibility to explain”, to which Collins responded “I do object to the assumption that anything that might be outside of nature is ruled out of the conversation. That’s an impoverished view of the kinds of questions we humans can ask, such as ‘Why am I here?’, ‘What happens after we die?’ If you refuse to acknowledge their appropriateness, you end up with a zero probability of God after examining the natural world because it doesn’t convince you on a proof basis. But if your mind is open about whether God might exist, you can point to aspects of the universe that are consistent with that conclusion”.”…
I tend to agree with Dawkins here. To use your term, Collins does seem to be ‘compartmentalizing’ here. If we’re to come to a further truth or knowledge about god, I don’t think that we can have our cake and eat it too. At the same time, I can see Collins’ point insofar as the appropriateness of asking the above questions…what happens after we die? etcetera. The larger the picture we see, the more we see what is valid or not. At the very least, these are meaningful questions simply because we ARE humans. With or without a god existing though, I too feel that we do not have the right to take it upon ourselves to destroy innocent human life, no matter how far along after conception it is. That’s not a god issue - that’s a human right’s issue.
lol. I think Jillete may have been arguing against a personal, loving god, Volchok. A belief in god does not have to be irrational. What he’s referring to above is the attitude of god being a daddy in the sky type…the silly patriarchal view. So that doesn’t hold water.
Again, what do you see as a lack of evidence?
I’m beginning to wonder who is really playing devil’s advocate here. lol. And well, I could copy and paste over some hyperlinks which would strongly support an intelligent and rational view of the possibility of a god, both scientifically and philosophically but you would probably just ignore them as you ignore the evidence (though inconclusive) which is right before your eyes, that same scientific evidence.
I don’t believe; if I cannot know. I can see a tree so know there is one though science has also told us that we do not see it as it really is because our brains have not evolved to a point where we can. Perhaps that is the whole problem with the god thing.
windwalker wrote:I would hazard a guess that there are some atheists - many - who are angry with god - and that that is the only basis for their ‘belief’ that there is no god.
How would you even know that i would know better than that? Anyway, our personal human psychology is so intermingled/incorporated into our view of god and our way of relating with a god. When that relationship is more or less a symbiotic one, irrational faith and trust break down. You can’t see how someone who has become deeply hurt and feels abandoned by their god, because of their faulty thinking and feeling of isolation, might fall into an atheistic pov? But it’s not based on reason, but on emotion.
The problem isn’t so much with religion as it is with irrational people and people who want to use religion in order to manipulate and control and perpetrate inhumane acts against humanity.
Hmmm, well, I figured Abraham would have been a bit insane himself in following through with killing Isaac simply because his god told him to do it. No sane person in my book would do the above to a baby even if they thought there was a divine command behind it. Wouldn’t a sane person necessarily question and question that action? And then refuse? And how could we possibly know that the command was even ‘divine’ even if we believed in god - and not simply a figment of our imagination? As human beings, we can be quite warped - our animal nature can drive us to do insane animalistic things if we do not use our human logic and reason and compassion to guide our actions. It’s rational and independent thinking that can keep silly beliefs in check. If there is a god who structured and ordained and designed an orderly working universe, don’t you think that at the very least we would have been bestowed with reason to continue that - it’s just a question of us knowing there is reason and using it.
I would say that the problem is an ‘irrational’ faith, irrational thinking. But the problem is also with the way we’ve been taught by those in religious authority who expect us to follow their own ways of thinking and believing like the unthinking herd.
But, although I choose not to ‘believe’, though I sometimes experience a sense of intuiting, I still see evidence as to why OTHERS choose to believe, and that is not irrational, for the simple reason that one can see.
Exactly. Think of how many supernatural explanations were replace with scientific answers. The opposite has never occurred.
To be honest, I don’t have to give any evidence. The burden of proof belongs to the theist.
And yeah, I thought you were a believer. My bad.
You didn’t say a strong one? Well if you think there’s a small chance of god existing, you’re already an atheist. You’re just not as sure as I am.
I do think your thinking is faulty because you will never know everything because that’s impossible. Even if you knew in fact everything, you wouldn’t know if there was something else to be known or not. I’m gonna show you how faulty your thinking is by applying your reasoning to another subject:
We don’t know everything about DNA therefor it’s possible that DNA has nothing to do with our genetic makeup.
So in the case of that man, there isn’t conclusive evidence either way right? Well that’s fine, we have to hold judgment in that kind of situation.
When it comes to god, there is not any evidence in favor of its existence and plenty against it.
Two completely different situations.
How the hell does evolution point in favor of god’s existence? if anything it “kills” most definitions of the personal god.
I don’t have to present any evidence. The burden of proof belongs to the theist. But I’ll happily counter-argue every evidence that you show me.
Yes, I usually am talking about a personal god but I don’t believe in any other kind of god either.
I don’t deny god’s existence because of that. I deny god’s existence because there’s no evidence for it.
Your argument is a well known fallacy. That’s the god of the gaps!
I never said there wasn’t a first cause. I just don’t think that first cause if it happened was a god or anything of the sort.
Dude, come on! It’s a perfectly valid argument. It’s a proposition, it’s not a fact. They’re not rejecting other possibilities. SOME scientists THINK that what I said is a real possibility. You’re the one who’s not being very scientific because you are rejecting a valid hypothesis without any reason.
Of course it’s valid. At this point it’s as valid as entertaining the thought that before the big bang there was no time.
Yes I can. Why would I not ? I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but there’s no evidence of a grand plan.
Lately there’s a question that interests me a lot more, which is “how the hell did consciousness arise and what exactly is the nature of it?”
So it’s either god or drugs + alcohol + promiscuous sex?
Is that really what you believe?
“The mother and father of all cop outs”
That made me laugh, so true! 
Of course it is, which is the god most people believe in.
belief without evidence = irrational
I’m starting to sound like a broken record but the burden of proof belongs to the believer.
Please don’t post links to bullshit.
Name the evidence by yourself.
The problem is in fact with religion because religion is predicated on faith which is the belief without evidence or in the face of evidence which is the same as irrationality.
Are you telling me that every one who circumcises a baby or lets their baby be circumcised is insane? Insane as in having a serious neurological issue?
Indeed , that’s why faith is so dangerous. Faith is the denial of logic and reason. Why do you believe? Because you do. Why shouldn’t you doubt? Because you shouldn’t, and so forth…
All faith is irrational. It’s irrational by definition.
I don’t think “created” is the right word. I’d say all consciousnesses have always existed and as an exstention too that God has always existed.
I thinks that’s an exageration, no evidence?
I suppose it depends on what you mean by “evidence”.
Maybe you mean strictly scientific or empirical evidence, but then that would be limited by things that can’t be tested scientificlly or observed empirically.
I don’t know about error prone, but it sure is lazy. I doubt that’s a good argument though against it. How can not taking a stance on truth, though certainly “lazy”, be wrong? One must make an assertion first in order to be in error, no?
Very good point. It takes effort to fabricate a thoroughly convincing lie.
No, the agnostic is an atheist insofar as he does not go the whole nine yards and actually believe in god. He makes no assertions, he only doesn’t assert that there is a god.
It is? I think you’re only reading this skin deep. You do have to read between the lines you know. In language, we are permitted the benefit of the doubt about how certain we are about our claims. We must be. We must be able to claim X without having every time to say “I don’t know this with certainty but X”. We must be allowed to imply this.
Of course, but it’s not a necessity either.
So true.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Got any?
Even if you take in consideration non-scientific evidence as evidence, I don’t think there’s any to back up a deity.
Extraordinary evidence? No, not as of this moment.
Though I suppose it goes along with the question of why anything exists, eventually you hit a point where it boggles the mind and can’t really be investigated further and all you can do is makes claims of what one might think is more likely.
Divine revalations and visions, Claims of seeing deities at the point of death.
Of course one could chop this up too mere hallucinations even though it seems odd that someone would have hallucinations when they’re brain dead.
In that case your claim is nothing more then white noise.
It’s worthless.
It isn’t backed up by anything.
It has no credibility.
Sorry.
I mean really? Just because says something, is that evidence? Might as well call everything evidence.
If I tell you I have a 30 inch dick, will you take my account of it as evidence? Don’t you think that considering everything you know about dicks, you’d find my claim extremely unlikely to be true?
First of all it is thought that the brain doesn’t stop working immediately.
Also, there have been experiments that show that when the brain is deprived of oxygen, there’s a huge potential for hallucination.
Fuck, if we can induce the sense that you’re being observed and that someone is present right beside you when you are alive, how hard do you think it is for someone to feel that kind of thing while dying?
gib…
But the agnostic DOES make an assertion - it’s that he or one cannot know.
One of the definitions of assert is "to put oneself forward in an insistent manner. Another is to insist, take a firm stand - be emphatic or resolute and refuse to budge.
If the agnostic’s INTENT is to show that he cannot know, that does not make him an atheist. An atheist’s intent is to show that he DOES know or even better does believe there is no god for whatever reason he has. The atheist swims in ‘knowing’ but the agnostic swims in negative capability.
Both the believer and the disbeliever take that final step though in opposite directions - the agnostic stands firm and at the same time, in flux, within the middle - that is also an assertion.
[b]I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, upon various subjects; several things dove-tailed in my mind, & at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, & and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason - Coleridge, for instance, would let go by a fine isolated verisimilitude caught from the Penetralium of mystery, from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge. This pursued through volumes would perhaps take us no further than this, that with a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.[1]
The origin of the term is unknown, but some scholars have hypothesized that Keats was influenced in his studies of medicine and chemistry, and that it refers to the negative pole of an electric current which is passive and receptive. In the same way that the negative pole receives the current from the positive pole, the poet receives impulses from a world that is full of mystery and doubt, which cannot be explained but which the poet can translate into art.[2][/b]Although this was the only time that Keats used the term, this view of aesthetics and rejection of a rationalizing tendency has influenced much commentary on Romanticism and the tenets of human experience
VOLCHOK, I hope to respond to your post to me in a few days or so.
It’s the laziest in the sense less energy/time/attention is spent on the given issue, once reached.
But it may take lots of energy/time/attention before all the interest are taken care, and examined to one’s satisfaction.
Positive believing (theism) can be the laziest for questioning, but they spend lots of time and energy praising god(s)/idols(s)/themselves/whatever. Even the brick wall requires maintenance.
Our consciousness isn’t something constant and united. I think it’s changing and divided/separated in many layers/ways.
For example, our sensory part of consciousness doesn’t seem to care about god(s).
So, at that layer, most of us are ignostic.
And in the emotional layer, there can be many different and often conflicting beliefs.
I’m not surprised to find atheistic beliefs still surviving and popping up time to time in the mind of fanatic believer.
I think the most important thing is what we really want at each part us.
It’s pretty clear to me that we wouldn’t be happy and satisfied if we are doing something we don’t want.
So, knowing what the body, emotion, and mind want in different parts at different moments, and knowing the priority and dependency of each desire can clarify the path and goal (for each desire).
It’s just being aware and honest about what we want.
I love seeing people satisfying their (sometime odd) desires.
I still say apatheism is most explicitly laziest. Ignosticism implies the activity of ignoring, which typically requires effort.
That’s why I’m not a scientist,it’s often boring, slow, no room for creativity or abstract thought, everything must be testable or confirmed empirically… Bah!
Of course it’s not backed up with that kind of evidence, if it were this discussion wouldn’t be taking place.
I don’t really see anything comparable, just another one of your God=something ridicoulous lines, lay off the poor analogies[edited] and stick with the empiricism.
You sound more intelligent that way.
I’ve seen example with people fully out, in one case a neuroscientist had some kind or rare brain disease( can’t recall the name), he stated he was basically brain dead for two weeks before miraculously making a full recovery. He described the experiances he had could only explain as supernatural( this is a neuroscientist mind you) and he said that he could not explain what happened to him in a neurologically.
So, does that mean that what he states is true, No.
He could be wrong, perhaps it was all a hallucination, perhaps he’s simply lying.
But I certainly think that it’s something to ponder and certainly not disregard.
Not quite sure what you mean here.
And it shoudn’t be taking place because as you’ve already conceded, your claims are absolutely vacuous.
Yeah, this would be an analogy, not a metaphor. The point is if I tell you that have a 30 inch dick, or 3 arms and 2 heads, you will surely dismiss what I’m saying. Why? Because there’s no evidence for it. Furthermore, you know enough about human anatomy to know that that would be extremely unlikely.
There’s also no evidence of god and you know enough about biology, physics and all the other scientific fields to know that god would be impossible and yet you think there’s a chance it exists.
Can’t you see the double standard?
Should we seriously ponder the thousands of people who said the sun careened towards the earth in a zigzag pattern in 1917 ?
It’s not just one neurologist, it’s thousands of people.
It’s funny how you put a personal account first above scientific knowledge.
it’s a known experiment. I can’t find the link right now.
I’ve conceded?
Also there have been people with three arms and some with two heads so…
The point is that your “analogies” make no sense.