ATHEISM

dunno, philosophy brings me closer to my belief.....

What difference does it make whether or not gods exist?

Wolf: what belief? Well, Wer, I don't know about you, but I rather love this life. Thinking that a superior Being exists, makes the necessity to die some day somehow more bearable. Or does the thought of dying and there being nothing and no-one after this make you happy and content? PS: Why do you call yourself Kitchen Manager anyway - or does that not make a difference either?

If I'm dead, what do I care? or, why should I care? and/or if being with your god is so cool, why aren't there more people dying to be with theirs? ps--it's my current job, my life...

o man, take care. what does the deep midnight declare? i was asleep; and from a deep sleep i woke, and swear: the world is deep. deep is it's woe. and joy, deeper still. woe implores- go! but all joy wants eternity. wants deep wants deep eternity. (nietzche) (that's why, i think)

Kitchen Man, why in the hell are you such a sceptic? I mean, if you did truly think, that there were no such thing as God, why should you trouble yourself to contradict me so cruelly? Don't get me wrong. I don't go to church, I have not the faintest idea what or who God is, and I am essentially against fixed religion - I think it very dangerous. And I'm certainly not dying to go ANYWHERE. I'm sure it is as natural to die, as it is to be born; and to a little infant perhaps, the one is as painful as the other, but I admit that I fear death as children fear the dark. I suppose seeing people weep for their loved-ones shows death to be terrible - it clouds the fact of it with vanity a d superstition. I am a very happy person, I love my work, I love the joys and sorrows of Life. That is why I need to know there is something or someone on the other side.

So you're a Relativist, Riette? You believe in some "superior being" but that being is different for everyone, yes? Let's get the intellectual guns out for the suicide show.

:Don't get me wrong. I don't go to church, I have not the faintest idea what or :who God is, and I am essentially against fixed religion i'm going to open a new topic about the "danger" of religion

I think we'll have to wait till tonight. Riette may be a night being. It's great she's jumping in to this conference with so much enthusiasm.

Hi, boys! Yes, I suppose I am a Relativist. I feel that giving the Being we all call God a definite identity is discriminate. I was brought up in a very rigid religious atmosphere where there was only one God, namely the Christians' God. All those who believed in another kind of God was destined for hell. Well, if Heaven is the place where people who only believe in the blue-eyed, fair-haired Jesus, then I'd rather go to hell with all the other normal people. I mean, how can you say the Jews, or Muslims or Buddhists are wrong? Or right, for th t matter. What arrogance to think we can pin God down! Yet, what arrogance to think we little humans need only our selfish selves.

So in being a relativist, you shy away from certainties of faith? Are you certain you're a relativist? Jesus was a historical, living man, having neither blue eyes nor fair hair, being born a Jew. If people attach certain positive qualities that they believe to him, then fair enough I guess - but don't go spreading it around too much. However, seeing as this is the Philosophy conference, I can spleen-vent on this (joy!) If people attach, say, blue n fair to Jesus, then one could say that the whole Jesus concept it delusional since he is "appearing" to different people as different thing. That's fair enough. Now reverse it. Jesus is revealing himself to different people in many different ways, each unique and tuned to that person's exact need; since all people are different, this makes more sense than a two-dimensional "one image" concept, yes? What arrogance to think we can pin God down! Too right! Is Christianity a pinning down of God? Hardly. Most church services I go to usually have something about not putting "God in a box". If God is infinite, then he is entirely non-sensical, since infinity is a no-win concept in four-dimensional space (new topic coming there, I think...). Therefore, if he's infinite and non-sensical, we can only go on what he's done. There's a good amount of evidence to show that he turned up on Earth a while back, and did quite a lot of cool, unexplainable (b normal means) things, claimed to be the son of God. So we nailed him to a tree, as he predicted. Then he popped up again, in a flash manner, and then disappeared in a double-flash manner. That, therefore, is not us pinning him down, but him pinning himself down. What a concept to think that God would exist without pointing out to everyone that he was around.

You give me a great many things to think about, Mike. I'm not sure whether we should carry this discussion on here, or in the religion topic, though. Perhaps I shy away from certain certainties of faith, because I am a Relativist. I hope I do not shock you by saying that sometimes I just wish I were a heathen, because the quarrels and divisions about religion and faith are evils unknown to them. It is important to me that there IS a God out there. I do believe the New Testament more or less, but I certainly do not believe it to be the one and only ultimate Book. I think if one becomes too certain of a certain way of worshipping, you become self-righteous, and that is the last thing I want to be. All I see myself fit to accomplish, is to try and be generous and goodwilled (though I often lack both) so that my life will not be a miserable waste in the end, but I need the protection of a divine Being, a kind of gathered force and drive in my life, which my own human nature in itself could never obtain. As far as the blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus is concerned; the reason why I was being so ironic, is because I know he must have been exactly the opposite, yet that is the way he was depicted in the Children's Bible from which I had to read every night. If you grow up with an image like that you think: Well, if Jesus was white as me, then I must come directly from him, and therefore I am superior to others - after all, my Jesus was like me. That is why I am against a fixed image of God - no matter how w ll painted or sculptured, it is always, always a distortion of what the truth must be to suit our human fancies. In the same breath I must confess that I have just completed a large painting of the Last Supper for an exhibition I'm holding the end of the year - and my Jesus is as imperfect as any other . . . I must think more about the subject though - I cannot answer it just like that without making a fool of myself. I have to think about your comments on the non-sensical comments. Trying to convert me, are you?

Good heavens, Mike, I just read your response again. Where on EARTH did you see/hear evidence that Jesus turned up, whas nailed to a tree, AND DISSAPPEARED IN A DOUBLE-FLASH MANNER?!?! Where was this supposed to happen? You sure it wasn't just someone with very big flash on his camera - Lord Snowdon perhaps? See, that sort of sensationalism does not exist in my Relativist world. All is very personal, very solemn, very unremarkable perhaps. I have even, just this weekend at an art vernisage, heard some artist going through his 'white' phase claim that Mary Magdalene was the bride of Christ . . . What human fancies will dream up next I wonder.

read one of the gospels and try explain jesus ascending to heaven as anything other than "double flash".

darn. pressed the Submit button before I was ready. as for evidence to him having "turned up, been nailed to a tree" etc., read some secular histories based on first-person sources around the time. also, he's mentioned in the Qur'An. many people try and explain away jesus as just "a very good teacher" or "another prophet", but this simply does not work. either what he said was true or it was crap - there is no in between. jesus claimed to be none other than the son of God, along with all of his other teaching, so either he was telling the truth in all of it, or it was all a load of rubbish. no grey areas, just black and white. your adherence to Relativism seems unusual, Riette, since Relativism is a circular, self-defeating concept. a Relativist is a person who believes in there being no absolutes - no absolute values, no absolute truths. yet, this very stance is an absolute - "I absolutely believe there to be no absolute truth". therefore a Relativist can dismiss the idea of absolutes no more than anyone else, since Relativism demands that the Relativist admits "truth for some" in absolutes. which brings another problem. an absolute is exactly that - something which negates something else. this is not allowed by relativism, since Relativism says that absolutes are not allowed; yet it must allow absolutes, since it is Relativism. Relativism contradicts Aristotle's principle of non-contradiction (that a statement cannot be both true and false simultaneously). That's enough Relativistic theory, how about a Relativistic application? The capital of France, to me, is Paris. However, as a Relativist, you could claim that the capital of France - for you - is Rome. That is a direct application of Relativism. But it's wrong, yes? The fact is that we are responding to a real world out there, not creating our own reality. As for me trying to convert you, Riette, I'm just stating the facts and the evidence; however you choose to respond to them is exactly that - your choice. for me, the evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of one absolute God. carrying this further, which is off topic, points very much toward Jesus.

are you a Protestant then, Mike? which flavor?

Mike, you never cease to amaze me. I now see why this discussion is probably never going to come to an end - except perhaps if we were to meet so that you could see how ordinary I am, that I am no weir extremist! The big difference between our opinions is that you see things black and white, whereas I see black and white and grey. I shall submit my response bit by bit, because my computer is being a real pain with the connection today . . .

To me being a Relativist is not as plain as a black letter drawn upon a white sheet of paper. I think the main problem with the black and white approach to matters, is that one sees not the finer, and often important details of the bigger picture. Don't get me wrong: i certainly do not go around questioning everything in my path - I just try to keep an open mind, that's all.

Saying that relativism has no absolutes is in itself an absolute too, you know, and so I cannot help but disagree. One must be willing to look beyond the simple meaning of the words written so plainly in philosophy dictionaries or even by great philosophers. This is how I look at it: The word 'Relativity' can be connected with many positive words, such as 'correlation', 'interconnection', 'assosiation' and 'approximation'. And that is what is is: not questioning and just not believing things that are obvious to the naked eye anyway, but a certain ALLOWANCE for matters that aren't quite so plain. I mean, for me to claim that Rome was the capital of France would be merely stupid, not in ANY way Relativist or an application of that term; and your very suggestion that it might, insults my intelligence.

I can assure you that my world is no less real, and perhaps even more so, than yours: I shop, I wash, I cook, I work, eat and sleep, and make love to my husband. I don't question any of it, I hold them dear - they are not meaningless fragments of my relativist imagination at all - it is simply so.

I too believe in you Bible, yes, every word of it - the New Testament, that is - but nothing, no-one will ever move me to exclamations of invalue or, even worse, Falsities with regard to the Koran or any other book of belief by a different culture. They are merely different. To you God is the holy Trinity. To certain tribes in Africa, like the bushman, God was at first a mortal like us, and then was cast into the heavans by the trickster god, Karatuma, where He became divine. To the Jews Jesus is yet o come. Are you so arrogant that you cannot allow for God's greatness? The mighty force, the great complicatedness of His very nature? How can you for one moment suggest that He be so simple, so vile as to care about the stories made up about Him in order to make him REAL to us? How can you pretend to see through those mighty eyes? It is the fruits of the belief that counts - and is it not remarkable how those fruits seem to be the same throughout the world with all its different cultures and beliefs, namely oodwill, kindness, generosity, care, affection towards others? Are these things not a great deal more important than our petty human differences on how it all came to be?

very interesting... I prefer to stay away from organized religion and avoid frustrating cyclical arguements such as this (actually I relish the arguement but I believe their is no 'universal truth' to be discovered) Speaking of Truth... sounds like some of you have differing opinions on the subject when a god is mentioned? What say ye??? BTW, I believe in energy. And in matter. And in the spirit. For me it comes together in a way I never "expect" others to understand.

so explain anyway, and let's see if any of us can grasp it

Ag, who cares whether they understand or not, Stacey? As long as our Truths and opinions don't hurt others, it cannot possibly be judged negatively. I think religion and atheism interesting and challenging subjects of conversation, ones that will never become exhausted, but I agree with you: the Truth of the matter is that it is beyond any of us. Explain to me about energy, matter and the spirit - it would interest me, and I think, appeal.

well there is a law in physics that states matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Matter, when it 'disappears' can be transformed into energy. Of course it makes sense to think that when we 'die' our bodies trade one form of matter for another in the decomposition process, but where does our spiritual/emotional energy go? Blah, blah, blah... I could go on and on about my thoughts but here is at least one of my premises.

reincarnationist, eh?

I don't believe in reincarnation - more in dust to dust and all that. But I do like the lines along which you are thinking. Is there more where that came from?

not reincarnation... maybe just recycling of energy. Never think I'll become another human, animal or insect... just pure (unbridled) energy

I thought that was what you are now, at least when you're not sick...

Energy sounds good to me. I can handle that. As long as I know I'm not going to be DEAD dead when I die, I can live with just about anything. I just hope one gets tired of living at some point - hopefully somewhere near the point where death occurs.

the law of physics states that energy cannot be destroyed, stacey, not matter. However, the law of entropy states that that energy becomes gradually less and less useful as it passes through processes. The entropy of the universe is gradually increasing. reincarnation is negated by the fact that we have an exponential population growth.

what about the thousands of extinct species, and those headed there, Mike?

Oh God, I'm gonna be a dino in a million years' time?!!!

sorry, i don't get your point, wer!

if'n matter is destroyed Mike... what is created?? Energy. That is the crux of my point.

energy with ever-increasing entropy and therefore ever-decreasing usefulness. if that energy is not bolstered by something then it will gradually die and become useless.

That is why we have sex.

sex when we're dead? that's the direction we're talking about at the moment - what happens when we die.

No, sex while we are alive. We make babies, and our energy is given to them. And believe me, there is no decrease in energy to be found there. The theories that we have been discussing here are very interesting, but for myself . . .I can see how other people can think so, but personally I don't think anything dead can be a source of energy. To me energy and life go very much hand in hand. (That's one of the reasons why dead people don't tend to have sex. Ha-ha!) I think that when one dies it is the soul that lives on; now, the soul must also be a form of energy, but I think it is energy in a whole different sphere and dimension from what we know. Hence the fear that ghosts instill in us. Ghost don't infuse life into living creatures, they do not contribute in any way to the cycle of life - because they exist on a different level from us. Yet they exist, and therefore I cannot but believe that there must be something hereafter.

my point, Mike, was that in some reincarnation belief systems, one does not necessarily come back as human, so your exponential population growth means nothing because of the extremely large populations of other living organisms on the earth, and if one takes into account the number of species dying on a daily basis then there is more than enough dying to cover those being born... you do know, unless they've changed the law in the last year or so, sex with a corpse is not illegal in florida...

Or Maryland. Some guy just got a reduced sentence last week because his lawyer was able to prove he sexually assaulted his victim with a beer bottle after he murdered her.

I think, wer, that the vast majority of surviving species experience exponential growth rates. without mass extinctions happening every day to large-population species, the two curves (dead and alive) will not meet up. i don't have any hard data for this yet, though, so give me some time.

that's why we have happy, evening-out things like... the plague, cancer, aids... and human-designed catastrophes like... car-wrecks, wars, serial killers... oh and there's always famine if'n we should fall way behind!

Serial killers you say? See, they do have a function in society. I once read an article about a serial killer who used his victims' . . . ahm . . . well, balls to make wallets. Gosh! But practical I suppose. One ball for coins, the other for notes . . .

What did he do with his credit cards and the pictures of his kids?

Why would he have pictures of his kids? They're in the fridge where he can see them every day, aren't they? Credit cards go in the back pocket of his jeans.

more people die in auto accidents than at the hands of serial killers. much more. some data: In the Unites States, 4,000,000 people are injured each year in motor-vehicle accidents; about 70,000 of these suffer spinal-cord or brain damage. 50,000 people lose their lives. An infant born in the United States today faces a chance of 2 in 3 of suffering an injury in a motor-vehicle accident at some time during his life, and he faces a chance of 1 in 60 of ending his life in such an accident. [Source: Physics, 2nd Edition, O'Hanian, H.C., published by W.W. Norton and Co.]

Mike, a personal question: do you ever joke around? If not, then come and join us on the couch . . . I'm dying to provoke you into laughter and silly fooling around.

fool around? yup. but not here. this is my serious zone. if you want to see me fooling, join us in "Babes". :-)

(how's finals?)

(just musing about Mike not being able to 'fool around' in ATHEISM...)

(would seem like the perfect place, wouldn't it?)

exactly my thoughts!

The perfect place for fooling around, or arounding the fool?

that is too deep for me on the last day of school. i will consider it and respond tomorrow.

Was it? No idea what I meant by it either. It was just one of those thoughts that sometimes pop up about two seconds before the total blank. . . .

i think i meant 'fooling around' but 'arounding the fool' really intrigued me!

Well, you know . . . like wrapping him up in his own sideburns.

now THAT'S a visual!

I've SEEN that! You get these men; they lose all their hair, except for that little bit by the sideburn. Then they grow this little cluster of hair very long, and wrap it around their heads, so people will think they've still got all their hair. Now, that's what I call blasphemy!!

i'm taking a friend to church tomorrow. one less athiest to worry about...

Yes - if one is under the impression that going to church makes a person a good Christian . . .

did a conversion take place Mike? BTW, your exams are now complete, are they not?!?! How'd it go?

my friend is the most indecisive person you could ever meet. All I've ever been able to get out of her, on ANY subject, is "I don't know..." She drives me crazy :)

Marry her!! She'll be good for you! I hope she shakes you for the rest of her life! What I'm trying to say, is that I think it is good to be indecisive and not too sure of everything. Because not being sure leaves room for thought and growth and development. Imagine what it would have been like if she had the answers to everything or most things. It would be boring, and you'd probably not bother to be friends with her, being the natural teacher that you are. Also I find that people who are completely certain of everything are generally pretty self-righteous, they feel that they don't need to learn or grow spiritually, they grow fanatic over their own (human) certainties, and that is very unpleasant. You know what I'm trying to say? Besides, I cannot imagine your not relishing the challenge she presents . . .

*laugh* indecisiveness is a gift! (and a way of life!)

but don't quote me on that 'cause I'm not really sure, I think...

See, Mike? (We all put up with Wer and love him all the more for that very thing . . .)

is that what we love him for?!?! I thought it was his ability to handle hot things barehanded!

Not to mention stuffing them . . .

in the appropriate places while still warm?

that's the credit I was giving you!

thanks, I guess, as we don't really know, do we? *wink-wink* *nudge-nudge* (still ain't quite figured that out yet, neither...)

How to stuff, or how to do it to the appropriate things in the appropriate places?

something along the lines of, why wasn't there more stuff in general?

That's more like it!!

then I guess you like it?

Psh - what a question. Shit, yeah!

aack...now you're starting to sound like Stacey... (almost said, "oh, my god," instead of aack, but then I remembered what topic we're in...)

and that is surely a marvelous thing, Riette... sound like me all you want! let's see if we can make WER crazy as a cockroach...(in the can thing)

fair enough

ha-ha! So, which part sounded like Stacey? The blowing noise?

Oh, and Wer, that would be, 'Oh my godless!'

how about, "oh my non-god" ?

or, more in line with Riette's French, "wha da f***?"

in answer to your question in re: sounding like Stacey, Riette, "Shit, yeah!"

Yeah? $hit!!!!

*grin*

Good morning, muffin! Or should I say, night night?

either/or/both... didja miss me?

Like mad!

a think you had a typo, shouldn't it have been Like the mad!

ha-ha Like the hare! Did you miss me is a more difficult question . . . So did ya?

sure, why not?

Too difficult a question to answer. But you know why not.

because I'm empty and thoughtless?

No, because I can't imagine anyone missing the pain in his butt!

You're pi$$ed off with me, aren't you?

nope...

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)?