Thank badness!

This week I spent alot of time by myself, going walking, hunting for stained glass windows to admire, and so on. And it made me think a few rather deep thoughts (she says, smiling self-mockingly). One of these came to me as I was walking to a small town called, Kirby, and it struck me in such a way, I cannot help but try and share. As I entered the village, it occurred to me how hard we humans try to defy mother nature. We cover her up with cement and pretty houses and other more masterful pieces of a chitecture and man-made things. Yet, wherever you look, through the tiniest crack in the cement and stone, a bit of grass, perhaps even a flower will grow through. And isn't that exactly what God is?

a crack in something man-made that a weed is growing out of?

Actually I thought that the thing I discovered through the 'weed' is a kind of understanding, very humble in nature, but still SOME kind of understanding of the nature of God/Goddess/Wankan Tanka, or whatever you want to call it. A Being in whose existence I happen to believe. No matter how solidified our negative emotions make us, somehow we always manage to get through that tiny crack, somehow we always have the guts to make that crack and let our love come through with new life. I don't think that that is something we humans are capable of by ourselves, our nature is simply too wretched to find the will and strength, and therefore it must be God pushing us through? This must all sound really silly, but I can't help it - it is difficult to convey the meaning of such a perso al belief, and I accept that.

A strong argument against the existence of the Christian god (henceforth referred to as God) is contained in the theodicy problem, which can be stated in the following manner: If God exists, he is all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good. The existence of suffering is incompatible with the existence of God. Suffering exists. God does not exist. To make the argument clearer, consider the following clarifications. An all-knowing being will be aware of suffering; an all-powerful being will be able to prevent suffering; and a perfectly good being will desire to prevent suffering. If suffering exists, then God - who is characterized by the three attributes stated in point 1 - does not exist. It is possible for some other god to exist, but he cannot be all-knowing, all-powerful, and perfectly good, though he may be one or two of these. - Dr. Niclas Berggren (source http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/Theodicy.htm )

Do you believe in a God, Terry?

And what were you doing yesterday? You weren't here properly.

the major flaw in the argument above as posted by terry is that we simply assume that a loving, omniscient, omnipotent God would prevent suffering. there is no basis for that assumption. consider raising kids: there are some forms of what some might call suffering that are absolutely essential to growing up to be a respectable adult. indeed, kids who have not suffered in any way whatsoever are usually considered to be horrible rotten brats. by the same token, God in heaven may view our time here on earth (both as individuals and as a species) as a "growing up" phase, after which we will be able to join Him in heaven, or wherever. i hope that makes sense!

I believe in a God, yes. I just like to pose these counter arguments for the sake of discussion. Austin seems to be the epicenter of the athiest world and there is a huge controversy surrounding the mysterious dissappearnace of Madelyn Murray O'Hair, leader of the Athiest movement.

RAY: Yes, I agree. It's just like us humans to assume that if there is a God He MUST only be good to us. That's our nature, that's how corrupt we are. And the person who posed that argument is a particularly good example! TERRY: Hope you didn't think I asked because it bothered me. And I am sorry for Madelyn Murray O'Hair. I know nothing about that or about her, and will therefore assume that she is a good person. If so, then she was probably taken by someone who did not share her views. Another typically human trait. We just can't let each other believe and live as they want without discriminating can we? I think if our natures were just a little more inclined towards respect for one another, we'd be a better speci s altogether, and those who have captured her are the truly evil ones, not she.

Madelyn Murray was definitely a weird, strange person, for sure. she and a couple of her atheistic followers disappeared 1 or 2 years ago with about half a million dollars in gold coins. speculation is that they were killed by someone.

... or that she's hanging out in Australia or Switzerland ...

Switzerland?!?! Well, it makes sense. If I had half a million dollars I'd also get my ar$e to this country as soon as I could! PLUS her description fits about every second female on these streets. So Switzerland can defenitely be called the land of the anti-Christ!!! ha-ha!

someone called?

Oh my godless, you again! ha-ha!

and ever so may be...

and ever so must be....for that is how we know and love you

no more change, evolve, grow? I'M GONNA BE LIKE THIS FOREVER?!? oh, well... it's hard not to be Devil's advocate when he has you on retainer...

Being an atheist does not mean that one is the Devil's advocate. You'd have to be evil, and you're not. Change, evolve and grow to where you WANT to grow, not where you feel you HAVE to grow.

how about monotheistic multideism?

How about NOT

Wer, are you alright? I cannot help but notice the time. Aren't you in bed, because you are worrying about work and stuff, or are you just not tired?

no yes yes almost

(and, I'm at work, actually...)

I am sorry to hear that. You feel you have too many things to do, and don't know when to get them done?

I know when to get them done, circumstances just don't always allow that, and, unfortunately, I also know the next best time to do some of them, like now for instance...

Sorry I left like Wer - the postman rang . . . really!!!! Parcel from my mum.

feeling better sir godless?

you talkin' to me?

ya I'm talkin' to you.

oh, forsaken and alone as befits the godless... how is you?

Atheism: a non-prophet organization.

ha-ha!! Sounds a damned healthy arrangement to me!

thanks for that return to terry, Ray. I would have said the same myself, except I was six weeks late :) every time i have a doubt about the existence of God - any version of creator you care to believe in - all I have to do is look at the wonderful complexity of anything in nature. go to a tree, pull off a leaf and look at it. spontaneous, random evolution? i think not.

oh, i am a staunch believer in Neo-Darwinian evolution. Evolution is not spontaneous nor random. i just happen to think that evolution did happen, and it was God's way of making all of the living things we see! back when i wasnt so burned out and decrepit, i used to spend a fair amount of energy arguing (in print and in debates) for evolutionary theory. when arguing with fundamentalists and creationists, i would start with the book of Genesis. In that story it is recounted how the universe and all living things in it were created. i have argued that the story of creation as told in Genesis is essentially and evolutionary tale. Consider: 1)There was an active process occuring over time (6 "days") 2) during this process, objects then life was said to be created in the same order as that given by cosmological and evolutionary theories) 3) it is implied (particulary in the old Greek and Latin versions of Genesis) that the living things created were dependent upon the creation of other living things before them. i generally tried to argue (unsuccessfully for the most part) that you did not have to be a godless heathen to buy into the notion of evolution through natural selection (a decidedly non-random process). instead, it was more useful to think of evolutionary theory as answering the "how" questions of life, and leaving the "why" questions where they came from, God our creator. whoops! that was a atypically long post for me. you just happened to touch on one of my all time favorite topics Mike!!!!!

Yes, that's more or less what I believe too. Now, here's a thing I've been thinking about lately - you know how even relativists think at times.... I thought about how God is so beyond us, yet how we speculate, even fight(!) about where He is, and where we will go when we die. Then I suddenly thought, what if we are all right? I mean, can any religion really be WRONG if practiced with solemn devotion and sincerity, and if a life of sympathy and care for one's fellow people is the result? So, does that not mean that Christians will go to their heaven, while others will enter their Nirvana or whatever they believe in? Is it not possible that all th se places are like different 'rooms' where God will receive our souls?

the following is 85 lines long: I just thought of something. If survival is the usual reason given for the changes that occur in evolution, and if the leaves on trees are there for the tree's survival, and if survival is the reason for the evolution of the tree into having leaves, what then is the reason for survival? If feels like the same question as: what is the reason for life? But the thought that I had was: if evolution is not random or spontaneous, and if evolution has a reason, say, like, survival, would that mean that the reason is what's important? If so, then the reason for survival is what's important, I was thinking. If the reason for survival is unknown, or if the reason for life is unknown, then what was happening inwardly within me was this thought: it's not really known, in a non-random, non-spontaneous, scientific sense what the reason is for evolution or survival or life. And the other part of this thought I was having is: that therefore the reason for evolution or survival or life could even be random or spontaneous in some way that is beyond reason, as well as being random or spontaneous in some way that is beyond spiritual or religious beliefs or meanings or faiths. In other words it's unknown whether the reason for evolution/survival/life is random or spontaneous, beyond any kind of reason (scientific) or non-reason (religious beliefs or faiths or those kind of meanings). If original source reasons could be random/spontaneous, then perhaps tangible reasons (leaves on trees enable trees to survive) could (or may) be also, in their deeper or deepest sense, random and spontaneous. To me, that thought leads to an uncertainty: since it's unknown, then it might be best to be open to what the original source reason/reasons is/are. It may be a mistake to say what it is before it's known. And it might be unknowable. It might be knowable in some unknowable way that is beyond knowing. And it might be that if a person says they know, that they may be only conceptualizing or projecting or deluding. It might be that a person might say that they don't know, when they actually do, in some way that is beyond knowing, and so it fits what they say when they say that they don't know. And it also seems like a person could say that they know and it might be true (and not projecting or deluding or conceptualizing) if they know in some way that is beyond knowing. Whether a person knows, doesn't know, or says they do or don't, it still just might be that everything essentially is spontaneous and random in its original source. Everything may be as random and spontaneous as beauty and love and truth, where the original source comes into play, if it comes into play with everything. It's like: is there a reason for reason or reasons? It's like: stop making sense. .....in the deepest sense. Does that mean that what it comes down to is: just listen to what's there (here, everywhere) without doing any preconceiving.? That would be being true, doing true, living true? And would belief and faith be forms of preconceiving? So here's another thought: is knowing what's originally true a kind of knowing that's beyond knowing and beyond belief and beyond faith and beyond reasons? Can the original creative force, (whatever that is, IF it is) be perceived as tangibly as a leaf on the tree, and if it can, there would therefore be no reason for belief or faith....as in the same sense as when we see a leaf, that we don't then also say we believe in it or know it or have faith in it or are being concerned with any reasons for the leaf. Just speaking for me now, belief and faith are out. They seem based on conditioning and thought. Knowing is a possibility, if it's unknowable in its way of knowing. I'm not saying that's true or that I'm right about this---I'm just saying that's only how it appears to me. And that unknowing knowing would not be based on anything that's gone before (no beliefs, no faiths, no conditioning or thought or reason). And it may be random, spontaneous, but it would be completely unrelated to religious personages or descriptions or symbolism or conditionings. And it may just be that the most tangible objects and the most tangible or obvious reasons (for how and why and what they are, even evolutionarily) may be ultimately random and spontaneous. What is the difference between this so-called 'unknowable knowing' and faith or belief? Wouldn't the difference be that it's not based on anything, and that faith and belief heavily depend on what's gone before (for example: scripture, tradition, thought, philosophy, conditioning, habituation, pretext, culture pattern, ethos)? Well, anyway, that's what suggests itself to me, and how I wonder about it all.

sounds like you're an agnostic, Jim

jim, the evolutionary process is not so much dependent on survival as it is dependent on *reproduction*. living things do not have to survive for a long time or even survive very well for evolution to work. all they have to do is to reproduce. it is the differential reproduction of one population of genes over others that accounts for changes seen in a species during evolution. i think one of the issues you were dealing with in your posting above was that of the seeming teleological nature of life and evolution: life and evolution seem to have a purpose. i happen to believe that they do, but scientifically it is not possible to demonstrate or even discuss that. in place of a teleological discussion, we can talk about *teleomatic* systems: those systems that seem to work with purpose, but in fact are simply the execution of sets of instructions going on blindly. Evolution is a teleonomic process, and the basis of that process is DNA. it is the property of dna to encode information about an organism, to alter itself, and (most importantly) to reproduce itself. it has been argued, in fact, that all of the wonderful varieties of life that we see on this planet are just a byproduct of DNA trying to survive and reproduce, exploiting every opportunity for survival possible, and competing with each other. in short, the seeming "purpose" of life and survival can be best understood by looking at the nature of DNA. Some authors who discuss this issue at length are Ernst Mayr, Michael Rose, and Richard Dawkins. What i wrote here is just a probably bad synthesis of their ideas.

I think for the most part there probably isn't any reason for survival or life or evolution, except WILL. No creature is without the will to survive; it is a spontaneous, uncontrollable reaction to the sensation of being alive. And that is the only knowing we have of that thing, that reason that we know so little, indeed so nothing about; a kind of knowing that you can't prove, can't understand, can't even contemplate, yet it beats as real as the heart in your chest, the pulse in your veins. You don' think about it. It is simply there until you die. I don't know if it is important that we believe in something or not. I believe in a God, but I don't think in terms of past and origin so much - stupidly perhaps. For me that would be to try and explain something that is so way beyond me that I cannot even begin to think about it. I simply don't have the capacity to do so. I do think about death though, and how much I like to be alive. I think it is important that the idea life and death be bearable to us, no matter what we believe in. For they are wo such overwhelming forces to deal with. If not believing makes it easier for a person, he/she should lead their lives accordingly, and if believing in a God(ess) and a life hereafter is what gives one piece, then that is how one should live.

I've learnt about that will to survive:) I, too, am an evolutionary-Creationist - didn't mean to imply that i'm not. the point that i was trying to make is that i don't believe in the completely random, spontaneous evolution position, as held by pure evolutionists.

i don't think that a "pure" evolutionist would ever claim that evolution is a completely random and spontaneous process. Neo-Darwinism is what most of the evolution crowd buys into nowadays, and that paradigm leaves very little room for ramdomness. Creationists have characterized evolutionary theory as random and spontaneous, but that is a falsehood meant to discredit evolutionary ideas.

explain neo-Darwinism to us, then. a pure evolutionist, in my conception of the term, is essentially atheistic - e.g., strong anthropic/weak anthropic principle.

well, i am a pure evolutionist, at least i think i am, and not an atheist! in a nutshell, neo-darwinism is the orginal ideas of darwin combined with modern knowledge of genetics. when darwin developed his idea of evolution by means of natural selection, DNA and the nature of genes was completely unknown. During the first half of this century, Mendelian genetics was developed into a cohesive mathematical paradigm called population genetics. later on watson and crick isolated and characterized the DNA molecule. all of this knowledge together with some contributions from SJ Gould and others has formed the basis of modern evolutionary thought, which is sometimes referred to as Neo-Darwinism. i think i know what you are getting at by saying that atheism and pure evolutionism are related. i have known and worked with a lot of people who fit that mold. and i think that they believe that in fact evolutionary processes are a perfectly good and complete explanation for how and why we exist. on the other hand, i feel that a purely evolutionary explanation is sorely lacking for a reason as to why we are here. that is a great question for which evolutionary theory comes up short, but for which we have religion and philosophy.

to my mind, and incorrectly in my opinion, evolutionism and creationism have always been diametrically opposed; many evolutionists I have come across debunk theism through scientific evidence, something which doesn't really make sense. if you can find usenet archives of a few months ago (www.dejanews.com maybe) then you might like to surf through alt.talk.creationism - lots of evol. vs. creation there, most of it rubbish it has to be said.

a theistic perspective cannot be debunked scientifically any more than scientfic theories can be debunked by theism. you are absolutely correct. all of this has (like everything else) a historical basis. evolution is *not* a new idea. ancient greek writers (names escape me right now) knew intuitively that evolution had to have occured, and they wrote extensively about it. after the renaissance, Linneaus and Lamarck also studied evolution extensively. to that point, there was no obvious mechanism by which evolution should work. thus, religious leaders were not threatened because it was just as plausiblyu to say God did it as it was to discuss some of the weird ideas of the time. All of that changed with Darwin. his idea of natural selection as the mechanism by which evolution occurs was threatening because at last there appeared to be a stunningly simple and elegant explanation for evolution that did not involve God. that is when the feces hit the air circulation device, and where we are to this day.

Let's say G is reproduction. Let's say the reason for G is F. Let's say F is survival. Let's say the reason for F is E. Let's say the reason for E is D...etc. back to A. Let's say no reason can be found for A. What does that say about B and all the other letters? Science can only cover so much ground before it runs out of reasons for reasons, as phenomena is traced back to whatever basis its based on at its first known link. Is that making any sense? One danger is the mind. What if the mind doesn't like uncertainty. And what if the mind has powerfully concealed needs to find certainty at all costs, no matter what it takes. Let's say that what it takes is the conceptualizing of certainty, whether it's true or not. In other words, it might be that truth is not factor anymore when it comes to the mind's need for certainty or theory or explanation or knowing or belief or faith. In other words, it might be that what people feel the strongest need for is to believe in words as if the words were the thing(s) that the word represents. Is it important to ask what the reason is for something? We ask own selves, don't we, why am I alive? So, is that important to do? And is it important to do with phenomena in the natural world? So if we ask what the reason is for DNA, and we come up with alteration and reproduction, mostly reproduction, then we can ask what is the reason for alteration and reproduction. Doesn't it seem like life reproduces so it will survive? If that's not the reason, it may be important to ask what is the reason for reproduction. There's a difference between not knowing the reason for something and random/spontaneous. That a reason is unknown is not the same thing as random or spontaneous. It could turn out that they're same, but that's not known yet. Nothing's really known, scientifically. I mean as long as the atom is an unknown, in the sense that it's unknown what an atom really is. So something can look like it's definitely gotta be not random or spontaneous, yet how can we be sure, if we can't be sure about anything, since knowledge is always limited? Everything that is known, as far as findings and observations about our environment, is always limited. It's useless when going into the question of what is true, right? But what is the truth about why we're alive? And can that be perceived or realized through thought? And is thought what goes into the creation of belief and faith? I'm feeling that belief and faith are conceptual and therefore void of meaning or substance. And that truth can only be perceived if all belief and faith and concepts and thoughts are set aside and don't come into play at all. Then it would come down to this question: can truth be perceived? And I was thinking that truth includes the reason for life. I'd like to mention, btw, that I can't perceive a darn thing......yet, anyway. But I don't say truth isn't perceivable. I'm saying the mind is conditioned by experience, memory, thinking, etc. This conditioning is dangerous because it affects a person by producing an unfounded consciousness, an awareness based on thought and the conceptual. The conditioning makes a person feel that their deepest feelings and thoughts and beliefs are not conditioned, when they are, over time, gradually, being programmed into the deepest reaches of the mind, rather easily. We are influenced like that, that's how our minds are shaped. Our own thoughts are combinations of other thoughts. In essence, it's a distortion....it's distorted when used to perceive truth. Perception of truth is up against that. In the deeper reaches of the mind it gets incredibly subtle, the self-deception, the distortion. It's extraordinarily difficult to be clear and objective and vigilant and attentive. It seems like it's true that I'm an agnostic, alright, and yet the word agnostic just doesn't feel good.....I guess there's some psychological connotation going on in my mind about it that runs negative, but I dunno why. All the above is extremely questionable (I'll be questioning it for quite some time to come.....I like it when y'all do too). And I like to question what all of us are saying. It's kinda worthwhile.

"truth" is a misnomic term in that it can be applied as what I think of as a "primary" - not sure how to explain this, so bear with me :) Religion I think of as "primary" - it attempts to explain x,y and z and relies on nothing else (e.g., evidence) to support itself. However, "truth" is no such thing. There are not "truists" meeting on a Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Sunday morning/evening because truth is only implied from more fundamental things. We believe truth to reside in certain things, most often those things that "work" - General Relativity works, so it's true, for example. (Oh, and just in case this little nugget comes up) "Beauty is truth and truth beauty" - what a crock of shit. Beauty, or moreover aesthetics, being so fluid and subjective negate that statement.

i would say that religion does rely on one thing to support itself: faith. self-evident evidence!

Jim, your response is overflowing with questions, answers, more questions - as is indeed every response in this topic. The fact that none of us can answer these questions - whether scientifically or morally or in whichever way - suggests that this particular truth is too big for us. We cannot grasp it. We cannot even begin to. We don't even know our own minds. We don't understand about how the earth came to be, how the materials from which everything on it is created, came to be. We don't know where it all began, but I think that first glow of life an eternity ago, must be God.

Maybe explanations, answers, thoughts, beliefs, what works, knowledge and faith are necessarily untrue. Maybe truth doesn't have anything to do with any of that. If that's true, where do we begin? Maybe with simple perception. Like looking at a leaf. Seeing and listening and perception---they're all the same, eh? But how can we see, listen to, or perceive truth? By elimination? If we eliminate or negate what is untrue in what we're seeing, then perhaps we can come upon what's true. Seeing the leaf while categorizing it in our minds as coming from an oak, is not seeing the leaf. That would be seeing that is contaminated by thought or knowledge. To really see the leaf....is seeing truth. But that means the perception is clear, and when it's clear, we can understand our minds, our emotions, reality and actuality, and what thought is. The really tricky thing that doesn't get eliminated is thought. Thought is what we depend on much more than we realize. It creates the stuff in our minds that we call faith or belief or truth. But it acts like it's not the thing behind those 'things'. Do y'all feel like we're following and understanding each other? No? Yes? Are there any missing links that you're noticing?

I fear understanding has nothing to do with it. This is all so complicated. But I do understand what you are trying to say - I think. You are saying that because we cannot determine where it all started, we cannot determine the difference between truth and falsehood in what we believe. But if this is true of religion, it must also be true of science. Neither science, nor religion has all the answers. Does that not allow room for a little of both? Is it really necessary to determine whether what we elieve is entirely true or not when the universal truth of the matter is beyond all our understanding? Just as the Bible as we know it, the Koran or the Torah as the Jews know it, just as any other religious script might be untrue for the greatest part, just so might all Stephen Hawkins' theories all be false. We cannot determine. All I know is that, if there is a God, He will have needed science to create the universe. And if science is what started life, it will have needed a hand to plant the first seed. There is also the matter of spirit. We agree that we all have souls, right? So if we all have souls, where will these go when we die if there is only science?

jgross, you are starting to sound so Cartesian!! "i think, therefor i am"

where's Tesla when you need him? or Reich?

Maybe you don't.

I love coming back to pure chaos! (Hi everyone!!!!!) Riette, I was interested in your comment concerning WILL. I often like to have my own question and question sessions concerning the topic of 'a higher being', a 'reason' for existence and meaning in life... but today I should mention I'm just happy to be conscious of my 'life' and don't really give a flip WHY! Jim, on most days I'd echo your sentiments but when WER (or anyone else) points out the idea of agnostic reasoning in my ideas I tend to lose the thread of my less than convincing convictions... But last weekend I spent three nights up in the mountains (protected by synthetic fibers and my fuzzy hat) and every time I had to climb out of the tent to relieve my aching bladder, I could not help but to gaze at the black as pitch sky and stars too bright and numerous to estimate... I can envision how others could conceive the presence of a 'higher being'... I just have no desire to rationalize it continually in my own head... so I don't believe (today)... but I might believe (tomorrow... yesterday). Nature is my God and Nature is neither benevolent nor malevolent. Nature is and Nature does and Nature has the potential to... and so as someone thinking through Christian eyes might say... we were wrought in the likeness of my god as well. To be and to do and with infinite potential.

EUREKA! THAT'S IT! You've cracked it Stacey. Argh...must explain...ppl not telepathic here :-) Sorry this is me-o-centric again, but it's important enough - i am trying to keep quiet a bit :-) Anyway, OK...you know that I said I'd become a bit more "be" and a bit less "do/think"? And that I didn't really know how? Well, Stacey's just explained it perfectly: > I just have no desire to rationalize it continually in my own head... that's exactly it. i have realised that continually rationalizing my faith, etc., is a fundamental part of the changes that have happened in me. theology, when you look at it, is essentially bunk. to try and tie "God" down to a series of statements, or propositions or whatever is to subvert the nature of God - if God is everything, then the attempts of mankind to actually say what/who God is are not only futile, but inherently flawed. By restricting God to, say, human language is to destroy God becaus God created language and therefore more than likely cannot be described adequately by it. To try and pin down God, to say "Yes" to this part of God and "No" to another part of God is impossible; and, may I suggest it, likely to lead to the sort of schiz that I ended up with. That's what has happened. That's what the paradigm shift was: God was no longer a person or a set of rules; God just is. I'm well happy now, even if it is 2 a.m. :)

> That's what the paradigm shift was: God was no longer a person or a set of rules; God just is. correction: That's what the paradigm shift is: God is no longer a person or a set of rules; God just is

Yes, that is how I prefer to believe too. Fixed religion too easily attaches human qualities to God - whatever human qualities are convenient for the leaders of the particular religion. And that when He is all around us for EVERYONE to see and feel, and in ways that don't need science or theology really.

*sigh* Glad I could solve everyone's burning questions... Anyone got any burning desires I can help with?!?! *grin*

oh, why do want to be burdened so?

YOU've been quiet. I miss your funny replies.

Rationalizing happens after we say we stopped doing it. It's rationalizing to say "I think, therefore I am." Am-ing doesn't depend on thinking, does it? (as in: "I think, therefore I am"). Thought is rationalizing. "God created language," is rationalizing. To say that there are souls is rationalizing. To say that nature is not malevolent and is not benevolent, is rationalizing. To say that we know that there is a god is rationalizing. To say that the will to live is the meaning of life, is rationalizing. Convincing convictions are rationalizations. Categorizing someone as a believer or atheist or agnostic is rationalizing. Calling myself an atheist is rationalizing. Those are all a buncha assumptions I'm making---they're rationalizings. They could be untrue. The need to be happy and certain is so strong, we'll jump at the first chance to rationalize that we are those things (happy and certain), according to where we're coming from, according to our explanations. Saying that nature is god and that it doesn't have anything to do with malevolence or benevolence, is rationalizing. Rationalizing is part of nature. Rationalizing is only thought thinking, and then thought tries to say that it isn't thinking right now and doesn't give a flip, or says that this is all unanswerable, saying that it (thought, or giving a flip) isn't entering into the equation at all, when in fact it's right in there going on being concerned, but in a way that doesn't look like it is---in other words, it's contradicting itself. That's what thought does, it contradicts itself. It has to, because it's very limited and it assumes that it is not, and then goes on participating while acting as if it isn't, and while acting as if it knows that it is very limited---but the truth is: thought doesn't really understand, to itself, just how limited it is. Here's what I'm getting at: Chaos is too much to take. We can't handle it, the uncertainty. So we go to our answers and explanations: 1) nature is god, looking at it as beyond good and evil 2) the will to live is what it comes down to 3) there are souls 4) it has to be that god is behind all this creation 5) there are no accidents 6) etc. Thought provides the remedy for our chaos/uncertainty. But thought is pretty tricky because it's way more subtle and active and deceptive and pervasive than we realize. We seem to be fairly clueless as to the living, moving attributes of thought. But that is designed into thought (that's how thought survives, evolves, alters, reproduces---thought feels great, effective, and fulfilled when it can act as if it's not doing what we think it's not doing, which is this: participating with further rationalizing when it [or we] thinks it isn't). Chaos and uncertainty and agitation and impatience and impasses also cause people to give up. People sense how convoluted and impossible the issue becomes. Short attention spans realize it's time to call it quits. This issue is one of those ones that calls for a deep and long attention span. There are defensive and self-protective reasons for why people give up. It hasn't happened yet with us with this issue, but the intimations are there. You can feel it smoldering. And it's okay to take something specific (some line that someone has written, and say why it felt unconvincing). It's actually very good to be direct, and share meanings and go into it a bit.....very specifically (not too specifically). We're all saying alot---a number of really different viewpoints are coming into play. And we're being pretty constructive about it (no one's attacking anyone or even showing any undertones of that, while at the same time trying to crack the code or contribute to the conversation---the inquiry part of it is still alive, and of course it doesn't need to have anything to do with cracking anything---it can, but it can involve just questioning, or saying what we feel is germane, which may move us productively forward). And would you say that 'Response 163' doesn't apply to you? Would you say that it's Jim doing what Jim needs to do (being defensive and rationalizing, while maybe to himself trying to look like he's not doing that or maybe he knows he's doing that and he just wants to also share what he's thinking and feeling, while not ever being able to admit to himself that there is this overriding personal need to be right and win an argument), and that's fine or not fine, and it's just not where you're at, so you'd rather leave it at that, and not respond, because it's just becoming, at this point anyway, too dense or abstract or circulatory (running in circles) or too much a bunch of verbiage or something? I know I'm rationalizing---all of the above applies to me. Thought is the thing that looks to me like the thing to be gone into. It controls everything. First understand thought, then it may be possible to go beyond it. But not until this "I have an answer for everything even when I say it's not an answer" thought (rationalizing) and other thoughts that don't deny having answers, are gone into. Particular thoughts aren't as important as thought itself, to be gone into. Thoughts are old and second-hand and conditioned. Truth and perception are new, in the moment, fresh, like creation. So what is thought, really? It's knowledge gathered from experience and being used again, usually in new combinations (like looking at the night sky and having associations occur to us during that experience).....but thought is much more than that, as well, because you can't have a feeling without that feeling depending on thought, and also: every thought has a brainwave---there are synapses and brain chemistry involved in each thought, which means the physical, the mind/body/matter connection---and that also means there are deeply formed habits or reflexes involved in this whole interdependent system, called.....thought. How does one change something like that? It's easy to change something like: okay, I'll start not using that vulgar word around these people. It's not easy to change something like: I feel so depressed and suicidal and I need to do something quite rash right now. To change from thought to perception would seem to be extraordinarily difficult. We don't want to be vulnerable. We don't want to hear our thoughts and feelings be criticized. If we can feel the criticism, if we're that vulnerable, and if the criticism somehow appears to be maybe valid enough or convincing enough, then we may abruptly lose a whole bunch of serotonin in our brain chemistry. Result? Uncomfortability---which often leads to annoyance, aggravation, agitation, those emotions, and then what happens? Often we get defensive with our most ready-at-hand defensive routine, or our most sophisticated one: 1) we could go on the offense, and use capital letters and totally advocate something without inviting any inquiry (in other words, being very anti-learning)---and being curt about it 2) we could just go along with it verbally, just to get the person to be quiet, 3) we could over-emphasize something we say when we focus on something in what the other person says, their weakest link, in order to use that as a way to therefore negate everything they're saying 4) we could focus on intentions and motives and attitudes in the other person, and try to criticize them and have them be the reason for our disregarding or discounting the content (substance) of what they're saying---but doing that without testing out our attributions about their motives, by telling them that that's what they're doing instead of testing our assumptions with them, constructively, using inquiry somewhere along the line in our response I'm probably no more defensive than any of you, and I may be just as defensive as we may happen to be in general. Why am I saying all this? Because to change from thought to perception probably means to learn what it means to be truly vulnerable (nondefensive). So, if we look at what all thought really is, what's the difference between looking at the night sky with that and looking at the night sky with perception, with truth? Actually it seems like the word "with" is in the way. Looking at anything "without" perception is looking at it with our needs, the things that're going on in the deepest parts of our demanding subconscious. Looking at anything "with" perception happens when the mind doesn't enter into the moment at all, because we and the mind understand what it is and how it operates, and that kind of understanding by the mind itself, that it has about itself (self-knowledge, self-understanding, self-awareness), will lead the mind to stop, since it finally and deeply and totally understands the outcome will always be negative, delusional, rationalizing, damaging, etc., if it acts in a moment of perception---thus negating the perception without realizing, usually, that it is having anything to do with the perception when it (thought) does that (acts in a moment of perception). So what, if any, are your reactions to all this?

Maybe that's true, what I said about serotonin, but I was actually thinking of endorphins when I wrote "serotonin".

actually it kind of is true, though there is really no one-to-one relationship between a neurotransmitter and some feeling or emotion.

yep, serotonin is over-rated...endorphins, however, rule!!! three cheers for Chaos and it's main mistress Eris! Hail Eris! All hail Discordia! Ewige Blumenkraft!

aw, Ray, you slipped it in before me...

still refusing to rationalize even if I'm forced to change the connotative meaning of the word to avoid it... ... my reaction is a headache... well actually I had that before (explainng why I'm up at 1:30am...) I'd go for 'freaky' dreams... just as long as I got to sleep during them!

Freaky dreams are wonderful, don't you think? Perhaps we should open a topic to discuss our dreams in, and try and figure out what they mean. But back to Athe�sm. I must say, I don't really think of what we are discussing here as an argument of any kind. I think of it as speculation, nothing more - none of us have the answer, therefore it is all the more interesting to hear what people have to say. Furthermore I'm not quite sure that what we are discussing is Athe�sm - but that doesn't really matter, the thoughts I have seen expressed here are far too intriguing and challenging to stick to just that one word. I'd like to go back to rational zing. Everything we feel, everything we don't feel, everything we think either consciously or subconsciously is rationalizing. That is an essentially human quality without which I don't think we would be able to BE human - or am I just rationalizing again? It is hard to tell with any thought that enters one's head, I suppose. We don't just live - we are aware to being alive. We don't just die - we are aware of dying when we do. Just because this rationalizing can sometimes be 'wrong' (in whose eyes? , or untruthful (none of us can judge) doesn't mean we should or indeed COULD stop rationalizing. How can one judge whether one's 'truth' and 'perception', that 'flash of lightning' is real, is true, is truthful? How can one judge whether it isn't just rationalizing? And I have a question: What about innovation? Does it come into play where rationalization is concerned? How much does innovation have to do with our perception? Does innovation change our perception, or does our perception of things make us innovative? Does what we believe, what we perceive, and what we rationalize not also depend on the times we live in? Surely Time is the greatest innovator of all. And we, unable to deal with chaos and uncertainty, constantly seek to apply new remedies, while exp cting new evils all the time. Which puts a new thought, and a new question unto my limited ability to understand. If time alters things for the worse, and speculation and wisdom cannot alter them foor the better, then what shall be the end? Should we in our beliefs not try and follow the example of Time itself? Time which innovates greatly, but quietly, by degrees that can scarecely be perceived? For otherwise, whatever thoughts are new, are unlooked for, and unwelcome.

Good morning! It's Sunday, 8:45, and I'm posting this from the community-access computers. We're just about to go out on the air. Yes, we do a TV show on Cable Access, called The Atheist Experience. Thanks to the Spring, it will be seen internationally. What's the purpose of the show? Well, it's to give people exposure to what "real" atheists are like. We're not all Madelyn Murray O'Hare; most of us aren't disgruntled iconoclasts. What we are, is the newest minority in America, a nation strongly dominated by religious people with a very serious bias against the non-religious. We're not here to "convert" folks to atheism. There are already many atheists. The Atheist Community of Austin does this show to promote positive atheism, to show that our lives are quite rich in meaning and conscientious behavior. Our philosophical outlook turns our inquiry and our aspirations to such things as life extension. Freed from a superstition that it's somehow "evil" or "arrogant" to want healthier longer existences, atheists have much to offer the human race. We'd really like to hear from ALL people-- this is a live call-in show, every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. CST. So, whether you're part of a flock or you're a dyed-in-the-wool unbeliever, I hope you'll tune in to Spring.net's REAL AUDIO feed, and give us a live call-in.

Also see topic 47 in the spirit conference.

Two gentle questions: How does 'aspiration to life extension' relate to world over-population. Is this a largely affluent-society concept or more general? Is man inherently a spiritual being (in the broad sense)?