Zone1 I've been an atheist for 60 years and have never once been tempted to believe in any god

[zaangalewa]

Blues Man

Did you say something to me?

Marie Antoinette for example - who never said "Then let them eat cake" - had to listen how her child in the room next to her room was tortured.

 

[Blues Man]

Blues Man

Did you say something to me?

Marie Antoinette for example - who never said "Then let them eat cake" - had to listen how her child in the room next to her room was tortured.

So what? It was not an atheist uprising as you claim

 

[Insaneworld]

It's lengthy so I'll comment as I go along.

Personally, I don't think the universe (the earth) has a good purpose. I believe it's an experiment of nature with no purpose.

That's fair, like I said somewhere along here, I thought the same too for some time. I was agnostic most of my life.

Life has been pain through the ages and only in the last 50 years or so, that pain has been managed and erased in nearly all cases. I believe that's the reason why heaven was invented and perhaps being of less interest today, due to far less physical and mental suffering.

I think that's possible.

For the purpose of this discussion between us, I will think of only our earth being applicable. I don't understand why you refer to the universe.

Once again, the earth, with due respects to your thinking. Life isn't known to exist elsewhere. And fwiw, I've commented on the lack of purpose of life on earth. This is my answer to the reason there is no 'why' existing.

Well, I see the Earth as not necessarily special, but just another planet of many out there. Life (in my eyes) is a result of natural processes compounded through time. Those processes that made life here on Earth exist elsewhere and throughout time. And, almost everywhere we look with a telescope, we see trillions of galaxies. It would be extremely unlikely that Earth is the only planet with life, even intelligent life. My view, based on physics and evolution and the assumption that Earth is not a uniquely special planet, is still that life, and especially intelligent life, will emerge in time everywhere it can. If the Earth isn't special, then many goldilock planets like it are out there, and if the laws of physics are the same in those planets (which we readily assume in physics), then that is enough to see that life will emerge there. Just like it did here.

I wouldn't credit Jesus but I can understand why his followers through the centuries have given him the credit. To me it's the same as the primitive tribe in Africa crediting the stone idol or the medicine man.

Again, I think it's possible. In His crucifixion, Jesus became a martyr and that propelled His message in a way that was not possible otherwise, I think. If He had not existed, and sacrificed Himself as He did, I don't believe that same basic message would have been spread as it was. My mom is a very strong believer, and even though I agree that morality does not derive from religion, the catholic faith gave my mom strength when she needed it most, and a strong sense of what is 'right', which she passed on to us. I admit it's impossible to give credit for certain, to say whether, without Jesus, we would still see that same (moderate) humanist improvement of today.

Since that IS my perspective though, I wanted to wear a cross, just as a matter of appreciation and admiration at first. I have no issues seeing myself a 'primitive' by the way, I think humans still are.

What caused you to start thinking in those terms? Did you encounter life that created a need?

Well, the view that Jesus had a hugely positive impact, regardless of divinity, was the first step, which lead me to wearing the cross. I had, since I started giving the question more thought, been agnostic, but my conception of 'God' and 'divinity' was too restricted, I think. I initially ONLY thought of God as a personal God that had a detailed plan, and has a kind of relationship with people. This is the kind of God I heard most often about growing up, or at least that was I understood then. But as I matured more, met more people (believers and nonbelievers) I think I saw that there can be so many more ways of understanding God and creation. I realized I had been biased against the idea because of these past experiences, and slowly I think I opened up.

That's Greek to me. I'm sorry.

Ouroboros does come from Greek. It's an ancient symbol of a serpent eating its own tail, and had a lot of significance for Gnosticism and Hermeticism.

Tiangles have existed for hundreds of millions of years and that theorum would apply. Maybe I don't understand your meaning there.

I think this is ties to the most interesting point, in my opinion. Triangles are abstract objects attached to a definition, the same goes 'length' and 'a^2', etc. These are all abstract concepts which are inspired by the physical world, but which can be defined independently of it.

When we define the concepts and agree on the axioms, what we find is the logically necessary pattern that is known so well. The point I want to make is that the statement (Axioms of Euclidean geometry) => (right triangles have a^2 + b^2 = c^2) is a tautology, its truth is derived from the meaning of the terms themselves. I see it as an eternal and infinite pattern within meaning, observable by anyone who can 'visit', like a mountain we 'see', although we have to think abstractly to do so.

I'll have to look it up and then comment if I consider it applicable to this discussion.

The logical consistency of Zermelo Fraenkel is not something we can settle within ZF, but ZF contains basically all of math. Almost everyone takes ZF's logical consistency for granted, we all assume it, otherwise there would be no point using it at all. Personally, I believe there is an implicit structure in meaning itself which allows for that consistency, it 'defines' and determines what is logically consistent, and it is a divine creation.

Math and science place great faith upon this assumption of consistency (of ZF and axiomatic systems in general). If they didn't, there would be no point using it.

Please! In your view. I'm a non-believer.

Well, you DID ask for my view.

I'll just say that our brains aren't capable of understanding everything, but very bright scientists are making discoveries that only a handful of humans will ever be capable of understanding.

More than scientists. Godel for example showed what I tried to allude to above. He showed that Zermelo Fraenkel set theory (as a logical system) cannot prove its own consistency, it must be taken as an independent assumption. He helped establish limits on what is knowable and provable.

Our human brains define the limits on what we can know.

I disagree, we can in many ways decide what to study, what to envision, etc. Maybe there's few limits, but as Godel showed, there are inherent limits out there, written into the fabric of meaning itself, as I try to put it. The second of Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia is what I'm alluding to here, which deals with a logical systems ability to prove its own logical consistency.

The 'positive' that came to me is that you're genuine, sincere, and searching for answers!

That's good to hear, like I said I appreciate it.

Sadly though, I didn't find that you addressed the question of evolution and creation being true at the same time.
Was that addressed in one of the paragraphs, but my decidedly closed mind on the topic of religion has caused me to miss it?

Maybe indirectly. I see life as a kind of inevitable, higher order effect of physics, like stars. And I see physics, and the physical Universe in general, as a creation which was made by a limited but well-intentioned God, chosen such that empathetic conscious life COULD emerge. This physical Universe in turn depends on that abstract structure in meaning deriving from the supreme God, which defines what is logically consistent, in a way. Put all together, to me, that constitutes a kind of creation.

 

[Batcat]

When I was 10 years old, we had a dog named Silver. A sealyham - sort of a largish Westie. He had been struck by a car when I was much younger and that had left him blind in one eye. We adapted. He adapted. But whenever he entered an unfamiliar space (the furniture moved, for instance) he would collide with things. I felt bad for him. Like most children my age I believed what I was told was the truth by my parents and the church they took me to. So I prayed as fervently and selflessly as I could manage that God would restore his vision. But, as would happen in any bad movie, his poor vision led Silver to wandering out in front of another car where he suffered another concussion which left him completely blind. Now all dogs go to heaven because all dogs are innocent. Every non-human form of life is innocent of the many sins the Bible spells out. Initially, I was angry. How could God cause my innocent dog to suffer, regardless of his motive or intent? The standard "mysterious ways" line didn't help at all. What did help was the realization that the best explanation was not that god was mysterious or unknowable, but that he simply wasn't there. The existence of the god described by the Bible and by our preacher and the believers I would talk with was simply not possible; not only because it violated all the laws of nature but because absolutely no evidence I could find supported the idea. Every thing I could learn about the world and how it worked refuted the idea of a caring, personal god who had created miraculous humans and a miraculous Earth to be their home and was everpresent, watching over us and, on proper supplication, violating the laws that he himself had set in place - if he felt like it.

As the years went by I simply became more and more convinced that there is a great deal about the working of the universe we do not yet know, but the basics - the principal of uniformitarianism, holds, everywhere and everywhen. Nothing is supernatural. No will directs or inspires the stream of events taking place over the passage of time. Only physics.

What signs or signals should I have caught that might have lured me back to my childhood faith? And how might my life have been different had I done so? I have lots of friends and I'm pretty sure most of them think I'm a nice guy. I buy fully and heartily into the Golden Rule. I believe it to be the sole basis of human civilization. How do you think my complete lack of divine faith hurt me? Will your god throw into a lake of fire because I led a good life but failed to do him obeisance? That is, of course, precisely what scriptures tells us. Why would ANY of you believe, much less WORSHIP such a god? He seems a monster. Would anyone care to correct me?

That fact that you do not believe in the Christian God is a decision only you can make.

You might consider Pascal’s wager.

Pascal's wager - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Pascal's wager is a philosophical argument advanced by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian.[1] This argument posits that individuals essentially engage in a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God.

Pascal contends that a rational person should adopt a lifestyle consistent with the existence of God and actively strive to believe in God. The reasoning behind this stance lies in the potential outcomes: if God does not exist, the individual incurs only finite losses, potentially sacrificing certain pleasures and luxuries. However, if God does indeed exist, they stand to gain immeasurably, as represented for example by an eternity in Heaven in Abrahamic tradition, while simultaneously avoiding boundless losses associated with an eternity in Hell.[2]

 

[Carl in Michigan]

Well, I see the Earth as not necessarily special, but just another planet of many out there

Do you know how many planets we've discovered that have an atmosphere of 20% oxygen?

Do you know how impossible EVEN THIS can happen by random chance?

Do you know what would happen if our atmosphere was 70% oxygen? 4%?

 

[Insaneworld]

except you love your wife. By the way: I was able to give this answer without a conrete idea about what you say when you say "corruptible" and "look with some pause".

I think you miss the point. The matters in The Bible concern so much more, so many details. So many things are prescribed and people judge so hardly based on those details. That is why corruptibility matters so much in this case. I've seen people corrupt Jesus's message, enrich themselves, abuse others, and dare to say it is justified because of The Bible, or because THEY have a connection to God.

I don't say there is nothing to gain from reading The Bible, on the contrary. My point is it should be something that done personally, something we can discuss openly with people. We should each try to take what we can from it, but I won't necessarily take another's interpretation as is. Especially when the majority of those proclaiming to know 'truth' are so often immoral and ceaseless judgmental. Like, some in this thread.

What you read is always only what you understand. If you understand more you read more. And if you don't understand anything - although you tried to do so - then there is sometimes ¿currently? perhaps nothing to understand. Step by step.

I completely agree. The same applies to this very thread, all language really. Communication is difficult for that reason as well.

Hmmm - as well physics and the bible say there is a beginning for example. The bible speaks about creation - and physics speaks about that a universe with a constant amount of energy started to expand. The physicists of the 21st century speak about a much more detailed natural history. But would they sit around the campfire of Cern if not thousands of years ago on a campfire someone had spoken: "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. ..."

So: What do you really compare?

If The Bible stopped there, I would agree with you. It doesn't though, Genesis claims to be an account of creation, right? It has many more details than just 'There was a beginning'. There is no shortage of people denying evolution based on The Bible, and honestly, I can kinda see why, if you take all of it literally.

To be honest: The worst criminals always said so and I am tired about such statements. Concrete example: When you don't see that the patriarch of Moscow is a former KGB agent and an oligarch from Putins grace who got more than 2 billions private property from him and when you really should believe now he is a Christian then let me call you just simple an idiot.

Popes invented new ways of torture, and sanctioned the killing of hundreds of thousands over 'heresy'. Humanity can be evil, regardless of religion. Unfortunately, evil people have (at time) ascended to high office in religions. Your own example shows what I mean, religion is corruptible.

My point is not about the worst evil anyway, just evil. Priests abusing their position is a classic example, not everyone is like that of course, but it's hard to take anyone as a good Christian, to truly believe they follow Jesus's message, if they crack a smile as they tell people they will burn, all for their lack of genuine belief. Would you agree?

Why not? Anyone could also go to confession for free.

Indulgences allowed corrupt priests to prey on grief-stricken people, they were not free. They promised people their dead relatives would reach heaven in exchange for money. They also took payment to 'forgive' sins of living people. The whole concept is corrupt as hell.

I do not like this word. Also a torturer has empathy - he knows what hurts.

That's not empathy though. Empathy is FEELING the pain of others. An empathetic torturer would the feel pain of his victims.

The strange thing is that many seem to forget "thyself" sometimes. Only who is doing so is also able to help others.

That's a good point, I think I agree.

?

If you're actually interested in seeing what I mean, I wrote a long post about it in this thread.

You are top-heavy.

Only because most people I've seen are not very self-aware or empathetic, can be extremely judgmental and tribalistic and don't think very deeply, but are ready to profess their views as truth while insecurely shouting and insulting others.

Speak with your dog about all this "problems" and perhaps you will find a new perspective. Dogs are damned good shepards.

I don't have a doggy yet, but I will soon God willing. I'm sure I'll speak to them as much as I do my other pets . I think you joke, but there is truth to it, and value in their perspectives.

 

[Insaneworld]

Do you know how many planets we've discovered that have an atmosphere of 20% oxygen?

Well, we don't have the means to detect atmospheric composition all that accurately or deeply (distance wise) yet. And, even if the fraction of habitable planets is very small, the Universe is enormous.

Also, Earth hasn't ALWAYS had 20% oxygen, or even oxygen at all. To the best of our knowledge, (from studying sediment layers and so on I believe), oxygen in the atmosphere came about from cyanobacteria, it was a byproduct of early life. Earth has been on a very long journey, and life is so dynamic that oxygen is not needed to start it, it can 'make' its own oxygen. Heck, plants do it.

Do you know how impossible EVEN THIS can happen by random chance?

I think random chance and chaos are difficult to understand. You CAN speak about design and determinism, in a 'distributional' sense, even when things are chaotic, I think. From my view, life is inevitable, intelligent and conscious life is inevitable. And it was made inevitable by God.

Do you know what would happen if our atmosphere was 70% oxygen? 4%?

If you are really interested, I really recommend you check out PBS Eons, they have educational videos (Youtube) on Earth's geological history, and they discuss cyanobacteria (oxygen levels of 0%), periods when oxygen was 30%+ (and giant insects were common). They have so much good content.

 

[Insaneworld]

Hardly. John on Patmos quilling away into the night, going bananas with self-glossing delusions is what you get with the Book of Revelation.

I'm referring to the Synods. Gospels and the other contents were written before that time, by others, but the decision to include them as 'canon' was made by powerful and influential people in a meeting. And, after many others had already been persecuted for centuries.

 

[ScorpioRising007]

When I was 10 years old, we had a dog named Silver. A sealyham - sort of a largish Westie. He had been struck by a car when I was much younger and that had left him blind in one eye. We adapted. He adapted. But whenever he entered an unfamiliar space (the furniture moved, for instance) he would collide with things. I felt bad for him. Like most children my age I believed what I was told was the truth by my parents and the church they took me to. So I prayed as fervently and selflessly as I could manage that God would restore his vision. But, as would happen in any bad movie, his poor vision led Silver to wandering out in front of another car where he suffered another concussion which left him completely blind. Now all dogs go to heaven because all dogs are innocent. Every non-human form of life is innocent of the many sins the Bible spells out. Initially, I was angry. How could God cause my innocent dog to suffer, regardless of his motive or intent? The standard "mysterious ways" line didn't help at all. What did help was the realization that the best explanation was not that god was mysterious or unknowable, but that he simply wasn't there. The existence of the god described by the Bible and by our preacher and the believers I would talk with was simply not possible; not only because it violated all the laws of nature but because absolutely no evidence I could find supported the idea. Every thing I could learn about the world and how it worked refuted the idea of a caring, personal god who had created miraculous humans and a miraculous Earth to be their home and was ever-present, watching over us and, on proper supplication, violating the laws that he himself had set in place - if he felt like it.

As the years went by I simply became more and more convinced that there is a great deal about the working of the universe we do not yet know, but the basics - the principal of uniformitarianism, holds, everywhere and everywhen. Nothing is supernatural. No will directs or inspires the stream of events taking place over the passage of time. Only physics.

What signs or signals should I have caught that might have lured me back to my childhood faith? And how might my life have been different had I done so? I have lots of friends and I'm pretty sure most of them think I'm a nice guy. I buy fully and heartily into the Golden Rule. I believe it to be the sole basis of human civilization. How do you think my complete lack of divine faith hurt me? Will your god throw into a lake of fire because I led a good life but failed to do him obeisance? That is, of course, precisely what scriptures tells us. Why would ANY of you believe, much less WORSHIP such a god? He seems a monster. Would anyone care to correct me?

Interesting. I enjoy studying many different religions/ beliefs including atheists sometimes. I enjoy talking to atheists getting their point of view as well as members of other religions. My favorite class in college was religious studies. I know some atheists who believe in some supreme being or supreme force or energy force, but not God. Some forms of Satanism are atheists, I use to belong many years ago to a Satanist club and it really was just an atheist organization. Now though I go to church and am a Christian. I guess we all do full circles of beliefs. I also have flirted with Buddhism and Hinduism. I also took an oath on the Quaran in front of witnesses, but I wouldn't consider myself a Muslim.... more of a Gnostic Christian I am. I have flirted with Judaism and Taoism too. I believe you can be a mix of all religions including atheism if you wish if you want be a part of all of them and just can't pick one religion to be a part of, for me it is easier that way. Religion is so fun to participate in...I enjoy being members of each one sometimes including Atheist organizations sometimes... but I still would consider myself a Christian. I also studied Scientology too, found that interesting as well as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Even though I would call myself a Christian... I do enjoy many works by athiests and I have had many athiest friends/ family members in my life. I loved Richard Dawkins books and his film "The God Delusion". He made a lot of sense and I agree with much of what Hawkins said, nonetheless I prefer enjoying myself in the many religions I enjoy practicing and studying.

 

[zaangalewa]

I think you miss the point. The matters in The Bible concern so much more, so many details. So many things are prescribed and people judge so hardly based on those details. That is why corruptibility matters so much in this case. I've seen people corrupt Jesus's message, enrich themselves, abuse others, and dare to say it is justified because of The Bible, or because THEY have a connection to God.

I don't say there is nothing to gain from reading The Bible, on the contrary. My point is it should be something that done personally, something we can discuss openly with people. We should each try to take what we can from it, but I won't necessarily take another's interpretation as is. Especially when the majority of those proclaiming to know 'truth' are so often immoral and ceaseless judgmental. Like, some in this thread.


I completely agree. The same applies to this very thread, all language really. Communication is difficult for that reason as well.



If The Bible stopped there, I would agree with you. It doesn't though, Genesis claims to be an account of creation, right? It has many more details than just 'There was a beginning'. There is no shortage of people denying evolution based on The Bible, and honestly, I can kinda see why, if you take all of it literally.


Popes invented new ways of torture, and sanctioned the killing of hundreds of thousands over 'heresy'. Humanity can be evil, regardless of religion. Unfortunately, evil people have (at time) ascended to high office in religions. Your own example shows what I mean, religion is corruptible.

My point is not about the worst evil anyway, just evil. Priests abusing their position is a classic example, not everyone is like that of course, but it's hard to take anyone as a good Christian, to truly believe they follow Jesus's message, if they crack a smile as they tell people they will burn, all for their lack of genuine belief. Would you agree?

No.

Indulgences allowed corrupt priests to prey on grief-stricken people, they were not free. They promised people their dead relatives would reach heaven in exchange for money. They also took payment to 'forgive' sins of living people. The whole concept is corrupt as hell.



That's not empathy though. Empathy is FEELING the pain of others. An empathetic torturer would the feel pain of his victims.

No one feels what another one feels. That's absurde. You are able to learn compassion.

That's a good point, I think I agree.

If you're actually interested in seeing what I mean, I wrote a long post about it in this thread.

Only because most people I've seen are not very self-aware or empathetic, can be extremely judgmental and tribalistic and don't think very deeply, but are ready to profess their views as truth while insecurely shouting and insulting others.

Hmm ... says your mirror to you?

I don't have a doggy yet, but I will soon God willing. I'm sure I'll speak to them as much as I do my other pets . I think you joke,

No. I'm a German. Germans have no humor.

but there is truth to it, and value in their perspectives.

 

[woodwork201]

OK well not believing that Jesus is Lord and Savior is quite a significant difference of belief. Kind of a deal breaker from all of the Christians I have spoken to over the years.

rift
/rift/
noun
noun: rift; plural noun: rifts
1. a crack, split, or break in something.
2. a serious break in friendly relations.

Since #1 is about a thing and #2 is about relations, we go with #2. There is no serious break in friendly relations and, especially, no massively serious break in relations. Christians and Jews believe differently but we completely respect each other and each other's right to exist. The "massive rifts" are Islam and Judaism and then Islam and Christianity. It's the difference between intolerance and tolerance, such as the massive rift between Democrats and conservatives. Notice I don't say there's a rift, let alone a massive rift, between Democrats and Republicans. There's hardly a difference that you'd notice between them.

 

[zaangalewa]

... Well, I see the Earth as not necessarily special, but just another planet of many out there. Life (in my eyes) is a result of natural processes compounded through time. Those processes that made life here on Earth exist elsewhere and throughout time. ...

So why do we see only life in the double planet system Earth+Moon under our sun and nowhere else in the universe? Where from comes your strong belief life could exist somewhere else in the universe? Mathematically the equation ~0 * ~oo = (nearly no chance for life in a concrete place) * (nearly infinite many places) has not any defined result.

 

[Blues Man]

That fact that you do not believe in the Christian God is a decision only you can make.

You might consider Pascal’s wager.

Pascal's wager - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Pascal's wager is a philosophical argument advanced by Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), seventeenth-century French mathematician, philosopher, physicist, and theologian.[1] This argument posits that individuals essentially engage in a life-defining gamble regarding the belief in the existence of God.

Pascal contends that a rational person should adopt a lifestyle consistent with the existence of God and actively strive to believe in God. The reasoning behind this stance lies in the potential outcomes: if God does not exist, the individual incurs only finite losses, potentially sacrificing certain pleasures and luxuries. However, if God does indeed exist, they stand to gain immeasurably, as represented for example by an eternity in Heaven in Abrahamic tradition, while simultaneously avoiding boundless losses associated with an eternity in Hell.[2]

But an omnipotent omniscient god would see right through that wouldn't it?

Pascals wager assumes that a mere mortal can deceive one that knows everything every person will ever think say and do.

 

[zaangalewa]

... When we define the concepts and agree on the axioms, what we find is the logically necessary pattern that is known so well. The point I want to make is that the statement (Axioms of Euclidean geometry) => (right triangles have a^2 + b^2 = c^2) is a tautology, its truth is derived from the meaning of the terms themselves. I see it as an eternal and infinite pattern within meaning, observable by anyone who can 'visit', like a mountain we 'see', although we have to think abstractly to do so. ...

To think abstractly? For to build a triangle? Nearly nothing else is more concrete than a triangle. We know for example that the universe is flat (=the spacetime of the universe follows the Euclidian geometry) because a triangle in the size of billions of lightyears has 180°. The only problem in this context is the measurement.

 

[zaangalewa]

I disagree, we can in many ways decide what to study, what to envision, etc. Maybe there's few limits, but as Godel showed, there are inherent limits out there, written into the fabric of meaning itself, as I try to put it. The second of Gödel's incompleteness theorems - Wikipedia is what I'm alluding to here, which deals with a logical systems ability to prove its own logical consistency. ...

What do you say here? ¿Logos is real? We communicate inside of our brains only with something what's outside? ... And that's the same in the end? ... Inside is outside? ...

 

[Mashmont]

But an omnipotent omniscient god would see right through that wouldn't it?

Pascals wager assumes that a mere mortal can deceive one that knows everything every person will ever think say and do.

Pascal's wager is simply icing on the cake. He's saying it makes practical sense to believe in God. We Christians already know practicing the tenets of Christianity leads to the best life and the best society.

 

[Blues Man]

Pascal's wager is simply icing on the cake. He's saying it makes practical sense to believe in God. We Christians already know practicing the tenets of Christianity leads to the best life and the best society.

Pascal was saying even if you don't believe act like you do so you can hedge your bets.

That assumes that your god is able to be deceived therefore it is not perfect.

I find it contradictory that you support such a ruse as Pascal's wager because it diminishes your perfect god

 

[Insaneworld]

No.

Okay, you do you. I don't seek your approval.

In fact, reading your replies in general, maybe a language issue? If I spoke German maybe that would help, but I don't.

No one feels what another one feels. That's absurde. You are able to learn compassion.

I do, not the same pain, but it hurts. Same thing my mom has, something I took from her, what I consider her greatest and most positive influence on me.

Hmm ... says your mirror to you?

Says most of what I observe... As does history too. You'll notice I have not tried to insult you, I have only tried to understand you, even if you don't agree with me. With almost all that disagree with me, I try to understand from their perspective. Often though, I find people lack the same interest, they are CONVINCED in their biased views, but they lack any ability to empathize and understand from another's perspective.

This thread, and the majority of the ones like it on this forum and the internet, are filled with that kind of behavior. I think you are blindly participating in it, I perused these forums (Ethics and Religion sections) and you're quite active in this regard. So, your reply is hardly surprising.

To think abstractly? For to build a triangle? Nearly nothing else is more concrete than a triangle. We know for example that the universe is flat (=the spacetime of the universe follows the Euclidian geometry) because a triangle in the size of billions of lightyears has 180°. The only problem in this context is the measurement.

(I just edited this part). I do know about the tests for flatness of space time. The point is that, even though triangles DO have 'concrete' representation in the world, they are approximations of PERFECT straightness, for example. A perfect right triangle does not physically exist, it is a distillation of meaning into an abstract world. We see them 'concretely' because our world follows those perfect, eternal and abstract patterns.

That said, I'm not sure a fruitful discussion on this is possible here, mostly because I don't think you engage in any good faith, and because communicating with you hasn't been that successful, in my opinion.

What do you say here? ¿Logos is real? We communicate inside of our brains only with something what's outside? ... And that's the same in the end? ... Inside is outside? ...

Perhaps Logos is real, as a nonphysical creation which DEFINE what is logically consistent. I think it would contain this abstract 'structure in meaning' that I try to allude to. Also Physics does not communicate with this 'structure', but it is still affected and dependent on it. We 'hang' from this creation, simply by existing we are subject to this 'structure in meaning'.

So why do we see only life in the double planet system Earth+Moon under our sun and nowhere else in the universe? Where from comes your strong belief life could exist somewhere else in the universe? Mathematically the equation ~0 * ~oo = (nearly no chance for life in a concrete place) * (nearly infinite many places) has not any defined result.

We only see life on Earth, but it's because we are mostly blind. We do know, however, that life here has evolved. We know many of the physical processes that play into that evolution, and we know they exist elsewhere. Everywhere we look we see stars, and when we CAN detect exoplanets (which is when we look very closely) we do find them. Earth started out as a hellish place, not even with oxygen, but that still did not stop life.

My view is that life is a physical phenomenon, like stars. Also, I don't think the chance of life approaches zero, I think it's very high given the right basic conditions (like early Earth), which is why personally, I'm convinced Alien life (even intelligent) exists, somewhere at least.

 

[zaangalewa]

So what? It was not an atheist uprising as you claim

It had been brutal and cruel people who lived without "fear" (=respect) on god and the god given human laws.

 

[Blues Man]

It had been brutal and cruel people who lived without "fear" (=respect) on god and the god given human laws.

So they rebelled against an abusive and cruel government system and you think they should have just obeyed and lived and died for the king right?