Evolutionary purpose: reproduce!
Other than that, discover what your own purpose is =).
This would fall under quantum or theoretical physics. Give us a summary after your post-doctorate studies.
Wow,
Just reading all these posts really gives you a sense of amazement that you are living. I mean, we are all here living on this planet Earth and most people have no clue why.
Our “self” here on Earth is thought to be terminated after death by some or transfered into another existence by others.
There has to be definite truth to this whole discussion. Just looking around at the people around me right now gives me a sense of bewilderment, how could this have just happened by chance?
the law of entropy and the law of conservation of matter are pretty clearl in leading to the conclusion that the universe had a finite beginning. matter and energy can not simply arise out of nothing. it’s simply illogical to believe the universe popped out of nothing, and similarly illogical to believe that it was simply always here (look at the law of entropy, second law of thermodynamics). There is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine.
thus as an atheist, you have to believe that the universe simply arose out of nothing. I myself find it much more logical that there was a being that created the universe. That doesn’t mean I believe in the Christian God, but I do believe in A god. I’m still searching, actually, for my beliefs.
…
if you want to read a REAL debate on the existence of god, read this thread. both viewpoints are presented.
http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?s=516b5a0a61e14cdaee79db15a0044aeb&threadid=7709
hope that link works
Thanks for the feedback. Nice to have some once in a while. Sometimes I get the feeling I`m almost talking alone.
That being said, I am not sure I will post more on this topic, but for a whole different set of reasons.
(Fear not, a search of the forum on Blaise Pascal, Mathematical probabilities, and Richard Dawkins will reveal many good past debates where many of us, myself included, discussed various views and spins similar to the current topic.)
I am actually changing my views of the world and am currently pondering about the fine line between:
The analytical:
Whatever`s bothering you, think, rethink, change your assumptions, re-read, re-write, re-learn until you find the solution. Ultimate responsibility demands so.
The instinctual:
Live and Let Live;
Renunciation, total and sweet (Blaise Pascal);
Pitch your way in life all you can. Learn from your failures along the way. Thats the only way youll live the life worthy of the name. Dont worry too much about what you say. Worry about how you say it. Dont analyze too much. Your subconscious is much wiser than you think. Expose yourself to enough situations and let it do its backup work. Speak from the heart.Dont worry about people or their reactions. You cant and wont change them. But by constantly pitching, invariably, the good people will appear on your path. Win-win will see to it.
(If some of you think it awfully sounds like Nick Murray and Aaron Helmsley, youre right. Read their stuff, and, like any good book, I found it so true I cant help it but to integrate it into my view of the world.)
Also, frankly, I haven`t found a better, more accurate, concise explanation than the one I gave before. But I am open to better alternatives. ;0)
Too insulting to one`s intelligence.
IMHO, I call it the fast food or fashion of thinking through life: Most people do it, yet few question it or its real origins or the originator`s motives. Context matters.
I read that religion was just an easy tool to control non-thinking population segments through images (calling to the imagination).
Using peoples fears and hopes as a way to control them to do what those in power (instigators of religions) wanted , and seeing how it works, is worthy of one thing, though: the greatest sales job of the history of humankind.
Example.
Lets say God` said: thou shalt not eat pig.
Any follower of God wont question it. And will comply, simply because its Gods word. Hell, Fire and Brimstone to those who dont listen or believe. YIKES!
It requires far less thinking and explaining to use people`s emotions and conditionning than saying, in the time and context when it originated:
Think about it, dude. We`re in desert-like settings, and vegetation is a scarce thing. Now if start having pigs for company or business reasons, we all know your pig is going to eat all vegetation in sight, roots included, to stay alive. Thus pigs are dangerous for our common future welfare and should not be kept under any circumstances, not even for food.
Now, whats the most efficient method? What will sell` the most? What appeals to Crowd thinking?
Yep, you`re right. Religion. The greatest sales job of all times. Compared to religion, Coca-Cola, the biggest business marketing success of all time, is a joke.
Sorry. Religion is just not my cup of tea. Too insulting.
is this your explanation? Yeah, i agree that some people just believe in religion for social reasons, or because their parents did, or because they are afraid of being seen as heathens, or because they are weak and need something to believe in. I agree it can be a really good sales job.
BUT, there are actual, rational reasons to believe as well. And in my opinion it is foolish to dismiss it as “the greatest sales job of all time”
and in response to your latest post, yeah i know it sucks when you take time to write something and noone even responds. so i responded. happy?
How do you Athiests explain the near death experiences. The ones where a magical bright light appears and takes the person away to heaven and they meet all the familt members that have past away.
I have heard some stories where people are taken to hell also, it sounds really strange. What is everyones views on this??
is this your explanation? Yeah, i agree that some people just believe in religion for social reasons, or because their parents did, or because they are afraid of being seen as heathens, or because they are weak and need something to believe in. I agree it can be a really good sales job.
BUT, there are actual, rational reasons to believe as well. And in my opinion it is foolish to dismiss it as “the greatest sales job of all time”
Hey, its just my view of it. Feel free to disagree. I do not claim to have an explanation for something which has no definite answer. I come from the results` school. The way I see it, it has stood the test of time like nothing else. Apparently, it fills a need. A big one. Generation after generation buys it.
And what`s the hardest sell of all? Intangibles.
Maybe my use of the term sales job can be misinterpreted. I`ll try to be more precise.
Why do I say sales job? Because MOST people buy on emotion. Most people don`t think before buying. They buy when they feel like buying. Sure, some merge thought and logic into the process. But the way I see it, the vast majority buys religion on emotion or for emotional reasons and needs.
On top of that, science, global communications and additional knowledge have opened doors to alternate ways to fill the need. Yet, thousands of years of tradition remains. Very much like Culture. Its mostly an emotional thing. Religion also stands aside, if not integrated, in almost every culture or nation. I have yet to see any idea as strong or undisplaceable` at religion.
To come up with something as big or bigger, wider-reaching, imbedded into every nation and culture would be a Herculean (for lack of better word)endeavour.
How many businessmen dream that their product could reach that level of permanence?
In this sense, I hope you understand that my use of the term sales job is not pejorative. It just sums up both sides of how I see it quite nicely.
In a sense, you could compare religion to the wheel. While there exists many alternatives now, high tech or not, old faithful (pardon the pun) is still there on every car.
“I guess in the end I’m like alot of people,I’m not sure.Thats the reason I’m agnostic.”
I believe the agnostic position is not that one does not know, but that one CANNOT know. Since God either exists or does not exist is a matter of fact, one can know - whether one will is another matter.
“How do you Athiests explain the near death experiences. The ones where a magical bright light appears and takes the person away to heaven and they meet all the familt members that have past away.
I have heard some stories where people are taken to hell also, it sounds really strange. What is everyones views on this??”
My view is that I don’t know, but I’d be more inclined to think it is the result of some neurological phenomenon rather than God plucking you up for a brief moment, only to change his mind.
Point of order: No one has ever claimed that our existence hinged on so-called random chance (whatever the hell that means).
FYI, in the field of evolutionary biology (whatever there exists of it nowadays), scientists dont sit around debating whether or not evolution happens or has happened.
And, S.J. Gould was an asshole.
Common Argument, Powerful Argument:
Occam’s Razor - the simplest possibility, by virtue of probabiity alone, is the most likely possibility.
So, we can either have both an eternal god and a universe, or we can just have an eternal universe. Probably the second one.
Also, evolution is mistakenly considered a process of “improvement” or a process of “increasing complexity”. It is not. Instead, it is a process by which STABLE systems propagate and UNSTABLE systems fade out of existence. Complexity doesn’t matter. Read Dawkin’s Blind Watchmaker for more information.
The purpose of life? To tear up your hands doing mad amounts of pullups and deadlifts!! Fuck straps!! Im old fashioned like that.
BullGrap
lol…very good BullGrap
Monty python’s “the meaning of life”
Argh, the psuedo-science proofs that the universe must be created by god are so lame it hurts to read them.
Mysteries are falling to science faster than panties after the prom. If we don’t know the answer now we eventually will…
Until we do know, the best theory to date is that we are here to spread our genetic material. Umm, I’m not arguing from a religious or scientific point of view in case you are wondering… 
Lots of good posts.
One question I have is why can’t god be the universe? Some of these rules and theories were thought up by men so hold them with a grain of salt. One universal rule that I believe in is that like attracts like. This is how focused people generally get what they want more than nonfocused people. Certainly there are things that our science has not yet measured. As I look across the room from me I see space and then my computer screen. In reality there is no space between me and my screen, There is tightly packed molecules, one after another, touching my skin and my computer screen. Thats not all, My computer screen is connected molecule by molecule to your computer screen and you yourslef. I submit to you that there is no such thing as empty space, we just cannot measure everything yet. Possibly will never be able to measue some things. Doesn’t mean they are not real. All things are connected, all things are important. And I submit to you that there is one single similarity in all things and that is that everything is connected to the source.
The other hard concept to grasp is when someone refers to the infinite. Infinite time, infinite space, infinite existance, infinite has no beginning or end, it continues on forever. Never Ending. Damn it is hard to understand. How can something not have anything before or after it. How can you identify something and not look over the edge, Is it even possible to understand or know infinity? I say not by men.
invisible: Other than referring you to a quantum physics text book, try “Dancing Wu-li Masters.” Not the best QP reference, but it’s an OK starting point.
But, since you’re a Doubting Thomas, and I like to show off, here’s a link to a class website, in which the prof is talking about pair production and virtual particles: http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~imamura/209/apr14/virtual.html
It’s a well-known phenomenon that is related to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
One more thing: Do you really care what anyone other than a creationist has to say? Just curious.
Wow, a lot of fellow atheists out there. Maybe there’s hope for this rock we live on after all.
I’ve observed something, and I wonder if anyone else has seen this too. Whenever I get into it with a christian or whatever about the “BIG QUESTIONS”, and I tell them pretty much what I posted earlier, the person I’m talking to doesn’t accept my POV, and instead will try even harder to try and prove me wrong. Now, I’m not telling them that THEY’RE wrong, I’m just telling them what I think. It’s almost like they can’t accept the fact that someone could be so stupid as to not believe the obviousness of what they beleieve is the truth. I honestly think that these people feel sorry for me or something because I’m atheist. How funny is that?
“Am I the only one here, or has anybody else noticed that the folks that believe in creationism look really… un-evolved?”
-the late, great Bill Hicks, comedian
Sorry, everybody – I couldn’t resist. I am, after all, a smartass.
Common Argument, Powerful Argument:
Occam’s Razor - the simplest possibility, by virtue of probabiity alone, is the most likely possibility.
So, we can either have both an eternal god and a universe, or we can just have an eternal universe. Probably the second one.
your argument is wrong. the universe can’t simply exist forever. second law of thermodynamics my friend. It had to have a beginning.
Hey, its just my view of it. Feel free to disagree. I do not claim to have an explanation for something which has no definite answer. I come from the results` school. The way I see it, it has stood the test of time like nothing else. Apparently, it fills a need. A big one. Generation after generation buys it.
And what`s the hardest sell of all? Intangibles.
Maybe my use of the term sales job can be misinterpreted. I`ll try to be more precise.
Why do I say sales job? Because MOST people buy on emotion. Most people don`t think before buying. They buy when they feel like buying. Sure, some merge thought and logic into the process. But the way I see it, the vast majority buys religion on emotion or for emotional reasons and needs.
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I see what your saying, sorta. And I would just say that for some reason man (most of man, maybe not some people on this board but most) has a religious nature. Because for some reason almost every culture around the world in history has created a religion. Romans Greeks, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Indians. etc. I never really felt a need for a god but some people do and I respect that. It’s just something ingrained in a lot of people to believe in a higher power, to hope. Maybe it’s their weakness. maybe it’s their strength.