The truth is that life is pretty meaningless. There is no perceptible organization to a randomly violent universe. Have you recorded a pattern to the way and time of every death so that you can see a pattern? Have you scaled the actions of individuals in society so that you can say that good people are rewarded and bad people disciplined? Have you found the pattern in life to be that of mainly perfectly blessed individuals? Has history revealed to you the purely kind essence of human nature? If in those studies you find a reason to believe in god then I have found your hypocrisy. Only a biased examination of these things would lead you to a belief in god. You can take the descriptive approach, starting with the facts and then forming a theory. Or you can take the proscriptive approach, beggining with a truth that then is applied toi make the facts fit. The former should lead you away from the "it's all part of God's plan" which encounters reality as an after-the-fact justification. OR God has a twisted sense of humor to trap us on this rock, that will eventually kill us, with no way to escape. And the punchline is that we are the only ones here who know it. The truth is pretty depressing, but then that's why people tend to ignore it.
Therefore it is generally claimed that consciousness comes form consciousness Natural explanation? What is an example? Computers are caused by consciousness Actually if you take any material phenomena the cause will either be mysterious (we do not know the cause) or consciousness - this will be apparent when you give an example
The relationship that life has to everything it can have a relationship to makes it alot of things but meaningless is not one of them. I have yet to see evidence that randomness or disorganization for that matter objectively exists. Quite true. That depends on what parts and depth of truth you tend to focus on and of course your natural emotional processing of information. I find the fact that humans are points of sentience in the universe really cool and the hypothetical idea that we are evidence of the universe having built in processes for self-awareness simply rocks.
We live in a solar system that will eventually cease to support life. That solar system exists in a galaxy that will soon merge with another galaxy, completely changing the dynamic of star formation in adverse ways for life. That galaxy exists in a universe that is on a course toward ripping itself apart (bad for matter). Life pretty much seems like an afterthought in that sort of world. No doubt it occurs naturally like every other chemical composition, but that's random also. Self-awareness is a conceit of our survival instrinct. Comprehension of our existence is probably still an impossibility.
Correct in the context of life as we know it. Our oceans will be boiling in 500mil years or so (before that collision). That's a hypothetical prediction at best... not even close to a definitive outcome. Why and in whose thought process? I suspect we'll have far greater control over reality (not to mention different biological adaptations) before our environment becomes inhospitable to life as we know it today. Why is it random? Is there any evidence that an objective phenomonea called 'random' really exists? Regardless of how self-awareness came to be, it exists (it is what it is) and does it really matter if we do or don't know ever single detail about it?
yes, a common fallacy. I believe you are trying to make the point that it takes a greater thing to make a lesser thing. the old watches needing watch makers argument. I will let Daniel C Dennett answer this one: (source) in short: the theory of evolution has invalidated the argument that it takes greater things to make lesser things. what are you talking about? I guarantee this is a problem of improper definition. give any example and I will show you the flaw in your reasoning.
Light, I thought the general claim was that consciousness comes from neural networks. What is a general claim? Umm, well everything. Do you know of anything that does not have a natural cause? Computers are caused by an evolutionary process. Put more precisely, the cause of anything is either unknown or is a result of an evolutionary process.
Teg: "We live in a solar system that will eventually cease to support life. That solar system exists in a galaxy that will soon merge with another galaxy, completely changing the dynamic of star formation in adverse ways for life. That galaxy exists in a universe that is on a course toward ripping itself apart (bad for matter). Life pretty much seems like an afterthought in that sort of world. No doubt it occurs naturally like every other chemical composition, but that's random also." Actually, scientists predict that essentially no real change takes place when such occurs. That is to say, the galaxies do merge - and many actually just move through eachother - but nothing really happens that will result in "adverse conditions for life". That is, we will be fine if we are still around then more than likely, as will most else. You must realize that there is monsterous amounts of "empty" space, that can be filled. Similarly, even with new stars forming, this process will take six billion years to even get to the point where the merger is imminent, and when it is on going, it shall take hundreds of millions of years, even though some areas of our galaxy will be more active than others, owing to the new fields for star creation and the like. It'll actually be pretty exciting for future aliens, and many worlds, I am sure, shall be easily able to cope. "Self-awareness is a conceit of our survival instrinct. Comprehension of our existence is probably still an impossibility. " How do you figure? How are we incapable of understanding our existence, if we are even speaking of it right now? That we live it right now and recognize that we exist?
The truth?! THE TRUTH?!!!!! You can’t handle the truth!!!!!!!! No….literally…you can’t handle it. The moment you admit that you cannot exist without the idea of God, you’ve lost all ability to think indifferently and, therefore, rationally and objectively. Some minds weren’t meant to go beyond a certain level of understanding. Their psychology and intellect resists the terrifying reality it intuits around it and it finds solace in ideals and beliefs which offer it hope and comfort and safety. You belong with the women-folk boy. Good luck and god be with you.
I guess I'm wondering if morality is local or relative, like a lot of you claim. And if it is, how local does it have to be? If morals are dictated by a closed group, what if that group meets another group with different morals? What dictates the morals of the composed group then if they combine to be a society or if they fight? Just whatever they do is right since morality is relative to the group or person? I have my own morality, you have yours, then what or who dictates who's morality is right if they conflict or if my morality physically imposes on yours? Do they just go at it and whom so ever has the might has the right? Just as a state is governed by the union, the world is somewhat governed by a combination of countries, eg, UN, and our body is governed by ourselves which is in turn governed by all of the above and our own cells work like a government to do their duty to maintain or govern the function of our own selves, but I'm wondering is their a Governor of all. It would fit the algorithm. And how local/small/relative does a moral decision have to be to make it right? Suppose someone sees it fit to kill another in the govern of their own morality. Is it right because morality is relative? Or is their a bigger body which should step in to say if it is wrong or right? You see, I think there is a bigger governing body in the universe and it keeps things in balance for the whole. I just call it God. When we pollute the Earth, God doesn't punish us, we punish ourselves. It's a natural balance. You push it, it pushes back, like karma or sort of the buddhist philosophy. I'm just saying, it seems to me there's got to be a higher power but we don't quite percieve it as intelligent because we are like neurons in a huge brain. The neuron itself can be seen as just as intelligent by the other neurons but it hasn't the ability to see beyond it that all the neurons are making up a larger body, a network, which in turn is part of something more intelligent. Just as one computer tied to others has more computational power than the one. A network which makes us one whole thinking machine, a society. I know, I may have so many thoughts running through my head all the time it may sometimes sound like quackery but life just seems too simple. The atheist philosophy of typically 'make it up as you go along' just seems so deceptively simple. It seems there's got to be more to life than just doing your own thing and not seeing the whole of it all or one relative moral set of rules. Am I right until someone says I'm wrong and am I still right until I what? Either defeat them or make an argument that doesn't defeat itself in being hypocritical? That model of morality just doesn't seem right. I think there has got to be a moral universal standard. To me, when I look at the whole, I just see one big soup of individuals arguing with hypocritical debates. For me to know that everything is all tied into the universe, it is all linked, that there is no relative. That one node in the networks affects it all, and the more in the node, the less the effect the single node has but it is still an effect like when averaging numbers. No matter how many you have, one oddball can affect one million. I'm not trying to debunk the Abrahamic religions themselves since the history of it all is arguable and really irrelevent but the main timeless message of morals. I think morals aren't relative but static for the same specific situation. For every situation there is a choice and it is always either right or wrong for it given the time, situation, and all the other variables associated with it. I think a lot of religions are really dumbed down because the right answer for every situation, time, place, etc, would take a book perhaps universal in size. I guess another reason why I come here is to find people to debate or help me debunk my own views and keep my own in check. I think the only dangerous religion is one which isn't kept in check and really studied and tested if it is right. Being a perfectionist at heart, I'm not really happy with just good enough but the best I can. I don't want to just live ok. If I can study my whole life on the right way to live it and when I die, I think I will be satisfied because at least I can't say I didn't try to live right or not do my best. I think it's all percieved as just randomness to us. Like a node in a network can't see all the nodes in it and understand exactly everything going on in every node. It can't possibly understand it all but the thing with the human brain is it's amazing ability for data compression. It makes it not that good for recalling or calculating specifically but in a seemingly infinite universe, being able to take seemingly the same data and calculate it against other quantities of seemingly same data makes the brain a great tool for understanding the goings on around it. To say we and the universe are purposeless is to say that, well, we're useless. Why don't we all go on a tyrade and do as we feel? So what if we die in the process, it's all meaningless anyway. So what if you kill your own loved ones, they're purposeless. That train of thought I just can't fathom understanding. No offense, but it's too hypocritical. So where do you draw the line. You want you and your own to survive, then humans before the other animals, then the animals before the environment, but can't you see it's all inter-related? Can't you see it is all needed for the universe to be in peace? So how many people can we kill off before we cross that line between having enough 'superior' humans and not over-doing it? Do we as humans rather want a race of humans that can seem to overcome in one area such as science, or sports, etc. and have dogged determination to be successful at no matter what cost? Would we not want humans that actually care about each other instead? Isn't that what got us to where we are today? Our ability to adapt by using our cognitive skills and our teamwork? We could reproduce more and more brains combined, we overcame more. This is like word soup trying to make sense of all the word soup going on elsewhere. But to me both the atheists and theists seem to speak it a lot with a lot of contradictions. Perhaps I seem determined to find an answer or try to debate other ideas that I might see as wrong, I guess that's why a lot of us come here. But we all see the danger in believing wrong and a lot of us come here to try to get rid of it and the ignorance associated with a lot of it. So you can see where I'm coming from. I don't want to believe without knowing or being almost certain. Maybe I should've posted this in the philosophy forum. It most certainly does in universal terms. It's mathematically correct. That less is greater than more is seeming nonsense. A bigger rock crushes a bigger rock. More neurons can overcome more neurons. A mass of animals (people) can overcome a smaller mass (animals) with a smaller amount of neurons. It's the way of the universe. It's the balance. Of course circumstances sometimes differ due to natural events which can change the odds but it's universally true when one side is given the same circumstances or variables. lol, no, I'm just a self-described scatterbrain. Actually, I could easily count the number of times I went to church and my parents never made me go. I found the bible myself through my own curiosity and that's where my interest in religion, or the idea that there's something more to life, started. Ok, we were evolved through a series of circumstances advantageous to creating an intelligent being. Whatever you want to call it. To me it's all a play on words. But put here or evolved is just shorter to type. And what is living? The process of going about life and making decisions on how to live it and how to treat others, or the best way to interact with that which is around us. I'm living it. Would you rather have me use "know" then? Anyhow, I'm smart enough to know not to use "know" when I'm not positively certain. It's foolish to use know so much and it's offensive to others who may disagree. btw, I know, perhaps I shouldn't have used, "can't deny God" but it was sort of my own call for others to help me debunk my own thoughts. Should I go over it again? What happens in the brain? It's a series of true/false reactions which also happens throughout the universe and everything around us. Any action in the universe can be turned into mathematical figures, as any programmer/mathematician would know. Of course not much of it due to the limited power of computers. But down to the root of every thought there is a go/no go reaction at the smallest levels which make up the decisions that consist of a much larger collective of go/no go reactions by the cells, molecules, etc. I can't see how the universe got to where it is now and the happenings in it, us included, without being intended. If I shoot a billiard ball in to a pocket, it's obvious it was intended to go in. If on accident, then it's obvious that the variables involved including the ones that made me shoot where I shot, intended to make it go there. I guess it's arguable. Maybe it's not intention but just the way things are but the forces that be all combined made it go and the forces in me intended it to go where ever the forces that be make it go. If that makes any sense. Let's move on. God to me is all that is basically, and the powers that be. Of course, we're predispositioned to know our role in society and where we fit in in the universe/world/society, etc. It's only common and it's common to want to find out so as to know we are doing as we believe we should and to give our life meaning. I get meaning knowing that I'm doing my job of helping the universal objective or at least trying to find out what it is. Maybe all there is to life is just getting up, going to work, and being "good" to people, maybe that's all we need to do. But I can't help but think there's something more and that I can do more in the world to help make a more positive outcome. Could I try to feed starving kids? Should I? Or should I just ignore them and let them starve. Spend my money on extavagants I don't need and let Darwin's law take care of them. I'm just not satisfied with that. I believe there's an answer somewhere and perhaps it was already told to us by the prophets but the complex circumstances of today make contradictions of those past arguments on how we should live. I used to find peace in being agnostic but I'm more pro-active than I used to be and if I'm not doing my all. Like a father working for his children. You give up your own comfort for a while to bring them peace with dry clothes and a full stomach. You sacrifice yourself and go out of your own comfort zone so as to bring comfort to others and there's just too much pain around so I feel I should do my part and at least try to tackle all these complex issues and try to pave the way for others. Maybe it's a road to nowhere but at least I can say I tried. As I said before, it's obviously information exchange to get to the root of it. Yes, I know reproduction but why? So to train our offspring and educate them with information to survive and hope that information is carried on and for the brain to hold information it needs to survive. I'm thinking beyond all this. Forces exchanged which at its root is variable information. How hot, cold, hard, soft, speed, of a force. I'm looking at the deep aspect, the mathematical data of the happenings of the universe. Perhaps it all sounds like quackery it does sort of make me feel lonely in life that I don't think many people can or like to see life and the happenings in the universe as mere numbers or variables at the root, what goes on under the covers of it all. That there is perhaps one big variable and all under it make up divisible variables. I don't care how ugly or seemingly chaotic it is under it all, I'm just looking to find the core answers as most of us are. I don't care what it is but if someone can show me how to treat our fellow people that's not contradictory, then I'll seriously consider it. But most arguments of religion and morals seem shallow and arguable. I don't know if anyone else sees it but now I just see arguing morality as contradiction soup. For now as usual I just do what I believe is good but faced with a moral dilemma lately of someone threatening to fight me, I'm still thinking instead of fighting, I should do just the opposite and help this guy out with his own life for the good. He is my ex's boyfriend. Some of you may choose fighting and especially with what was said from him if you were me but does might actually make right? If he doesn't live by my rules to let me live in peace and leave me alone, why should I abide by his rules of no weapons when fighting and just blast him? Should I do away with someone because they don't observe my morals? If I did, would you say I actually have morals? You see, those that argue here and argue with malice in the name or morals or religion, should they even be arguing the topic? I know, this is a huge post and not even sure it belongs here but if anything, I'm just trying to get people to think about what they're doing. Too many people fighting and arguing, sometimes maliciously, about what they think is right. If you think you have the answers, surely if it's to degrade someone and call them purposeless by way of killing and saying their job here is done, then they must sure be God then or think they are. Then where do you draw the line? You can't kill but other nasty things you're allowed to do? Myself, I believe so far in a mix of most popular religions, Christianity mostly and atheism although I do believe in a God-like deity. But as time goes by, I find myself belieiving more and more in nothing. Just an observer in a world where if we do bad, bad things happen to us and we learn from it and change it into good and teach others that it's bad. We do good and we're rewarded. But who's to say death is bad? If we die, maybe it's Darwinism, cleansing society from the people who make more mistakes and adapting the population to the current circumstances. But just letting Darwinism happen, is that not bad for the world as a whole for us to think so cheaply of life and self-destructive for society? It creates less trust and less teamwork since everyone else would know the person is only doing what they're doing for themselves and you can never be sure when they're going to get rid of you for their own good. And man being advanced as it is, it would be destructive to man-kind in general in the atomic age. So there we have it, more contradiction on that side. Should we just get rid of all thought and say everyone's contradictory? Maybe unless someone can come up with a legitimite moral code. Perhaps I'm waiting on a saviour. Someone who knows the answer. Society seems dangerous when you have people running around not knowing wrong from right or up from down. Or if fighting is only a bad thing when it is used to promote bad, any contradiction? Or if name calling is not bad but good when someone has a different idea than yours and you can make them mad by saying that. Even here on the religion board I just see too many contradictions and I guess I'm just looking for answers no matter what side it's from. But is just having general rules as an atheist the right way? How many rules do I have to set forth on paper for it to be a religion and contradict myself if I talked bad of religion? Is it good to have only a few rules for all situations or is it not dangerous? Is there no one to step forth and claim they have a good moral code and post it? If not, is that not like saying Chevy's are better than Fords when you have no car or no experience with one just based on heresay? I'm just saying how can anyone post here with any sense unless it's based on deep roots of how the universe and the societal structure works instead of often shallow arguments? Anyhow, let me end my droning on here or else I could go on and on with this topic.
Well not really. Firts of all in about 500 million years our solar system will undergo a dramatic climate change from the changes in solar composition. So we won't be around before the merger. Secondly I meant that the conditions for life will be fundamentally altered once our galaxy settles into an elliptical form. True, the the merger ought to have little effect at our around the moment of impact. Stars will not collide at any significant rate and the spiral arms will still react, to some degree, in a normal way. But a few billion years into the elliptical formation reveals that the type of stars might not be so suitable to life. Older stars are much cooler than thyose of the milky way. But all of that is waaaaaay too hypothetical. That part of my argument, concerning the "comfort zone", was more speculative, I will admit. But most assuredly the universe ripping itself apart and the solar enlargement shall both have apocalyptic implications for all of life on Earth. This was a philosophical cookie that I threw out there. But I do figure that there is a good deal of space in GUT theory that argues for my case. For instance, if you can somehow make sense of the four complementary String Theories or goodness even the utter bs of M theory, then you must have studied abstract philosophy because I find them critically low on math and science. Exactly 11 universes may seem obvious to druggies, but then maybe it will be 15 tommorrow. I am the first to admit that bthat sort of science seems more like religion. I merely submit the argument that it is likely they are both wrong. Maybe Inflationary Theory? No probably wrong also. I am just saying that you can't know you exist until you qualify how you exist. Any computer can feign "cognitive awareness." The conceit is that you say the magic words and that is all there is to comprehension.
Teg: "Well not really. Firts of all in about 500 million years our solar system will undergo a dramatic climate change from the changes in solar composition. So we won't be around before the merger." Actually, I believe that shall take about one billion years to occur, not 500. It is also likely that many of the effects could be counterbalanced by human innovations. "Secondly I meant that the conditions for life will be fundamentally altered once our galaxy settles into an elliptical form. True, the the merger ought to have little effect at our around the moment of impact. Stars will not collide at any significant rate and the spiral arms will still react, to some degree, in a normal way. But a few billion years into the elliptical formation reveals that the type of stars might not be so suitable to life. Older stars are much cooler than thyose of the milky way. But all of that is waaaaaay too hypothetical. That part of my argument, concerning the "comfort zone", was more speculative, I will admit. But most assuredly the universe ripping itself apart and the solar enlargement shall both have apocalyptic implications for all of life on Earth." Well yes, if we are litterally ripped apart by the expansion of the universe, everything will end. Hopefully this shall not happen, though! There is still much evidence to suggest we'll enter into a phase where we all condense back into big-bang conditions. Black holes, for instance, might be crucial for this. "This was a philosophical cookie that I threw out there. But I do figure that there is a good deal of space in GUT theory that argues for my case. For instance, if you can somehow make sense of the four complementary String Theories or goodness even the utter bs of M theory, then you must have studied abstract philosophy because I find them critically low on math and science. Exactly 11 universes may seem obvious to druggies, but then maybe it will be 15 tommorrow." I must certianly agree with you on these points. I am entirely skeptical of the scientific validity of String or M-Theory and the fruitfulness for continuing, even after so many years of no verification, on that scientific road. "I am the first to admit that bthat sort of science seems more like religion. I merely submit the argument that it is likely they are both wrong. Maybe Inflationary Theory? No probably wrong also. I am just saying that you can't know you exist until you qualify how you exist. Any computer can feign "cognitive awareness." The conceit is that you say the magic words and that is all there is to comprehension. " That is, we cannot know we exist until we have all the material understanding as to how we came to be in terms of universal evolution and scientific law? Or do you mean something else?
Then you have to give evidence that the origins of consciousness are dull matter - even if you want to accept that consciousness is changing forms, it doesn't tell us anything about the origns of it, unless you want to accept consciousness as an eternal element of existence
There is no evidence for anything other than "dull matter". If you have evidence of such - please provide. You are the one making the claim that consciousness is somehow above/beyond/different to matter - even though we have never had ANY evidence of something that is NOT, in some shape or form, matter. Therefore YOU are the one that has to provide evidence to support your claim. As for the origins of consciousness - please define what you mean by "consciousness" and then we can see if there is any evidence that it is anything other than an emergent property of a complex system - the origins of which would be evolutionary.
They integrate and / or battle it out. Law These seem like rhetorical questions that are being asked. I think a bigger issue is you're just not being honest with yourself. You have a very normal psychological need for an all powerful "absolute" authority figure. You have to acknowledge and understand them or you're just going to be spinning your wheels here. Learn these phrases and their meanings and use the best one whenever you are inclined to say "I believe...". "I don't know..." "I speculate..." "I hypothesize..." "I theorize..." No, mr. computer science major. You have no such knowledge of that conclusion. Don't confuse bit/byte anaology with brain chemistry. You lack the knowledge necessary to make that kind of conclusion. This is an example of how belief is affecting your thinking. My last 2 comments apply to this as well. That's a problem in thinking. Something is beyond my ability to comprehend or my knowledge base; therefore, 'God' exists and he did it. What powers? Are you going into subjectivity-land here? Those children you are feeding and clothing were the result of irresponsible parents whom will make the same mistake because of you not holding them accountable and their children likely will do the same. You seem very into an ideal of being a hero and helping others... definately american/christian ideals have influenced your thinking. Probably too much GI Joe and bible stories when you were little. One thing that I am noticing is that you have no idea who you are. Maybe you spent too much time throughout your life focusing on others / the way others wanted you to be and never focused on yourself. Now you might be looking for a 'God' to help fill your identity void. IMO, you might want to really find a professional to help you towards discovering whom you really are. It could take years and its better to start sooner than later. Meaning is the relationship between 2 or more variables. Life is a set of variables and everything life can have a relationship to is a set of varaibles. The meaning of life is not an answer that is really useful and information exchange at best is a teeny tiny part of it. Not everything is a C++ anology there bud. The overly-simplistic answer is because that's the way reality is. In this context the question of 'why' is becoming a question of intent and that question simply might not be applicable. I already did and you either didn't understand it or like it. Be ADAPTABLE and NOT definitive. When someone (an adult) is challenge you to a fight then they are expressing a desire to kill you most of the time. The law (at least in the U.S.) doesn't recognize that fact but you have to. If you can win against this person in a fight then it might make sense to give him the ass-kicking of his life and put the fear of 'God' and death in him. If you can't then get someone else to do it (hire them if you have to). Society deems blasting him 'wrong' and will punish you if you do so. You can however get away with kicking his ass and rule him by fear and an iron fist. Might will remove a threat and 'right' / 'wrong' are still subjective concepts.
Teg; Most of your whole post is speculative. You are leaving one main ingridient out of the whole puzzle. When you figure that out, you may then know that all things predicted, may not be exactly what happens. Godless
Human inventions that can counteract the Sun? That's pretty wild. But actually, honestly, it likely won't come up. The new eco shift will probably cycle us out of the loop in less than 50,000 years. That's pretty optimistic. We can't even fix climate change on Earth. How do you suppose we do it on the sun? Moreover it has become increasingly apprent, that due to physics we are encoumbered by a number of natural limits. For instance check Moore's law of computer processing leaps. It's pretty much broken now due to the inability to work on such small levels. What? That's science fiction. We live in an open universe. Thats'a fact proved by the cosmological red-shift. Nothing in that suggests a white hole (which is what you must be reffering to as that is what the big bang was). Moreover Wormholes are pure sci fi too (admitted by Hawkings). You describe a closed universe and there is no evidence for that. Just to clear up these mnisconceptions: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmology_faq.html#XIN It's good that I'm not the only one. But I don't think that any GUT has an end. They are all secret paths to nowhere. I simply mean that anyone can articulate any principal, but the problem is that our power of observation is severely limited by our inability to detect most of the universe. We only see in one light spectrum, in a limited range of dimension, and a limited range of time. I think these disadvantages are too great for anyone to say anything with certainty. For instance we can observe how gravity works, but not what makes it work. Time, space, and magnetism have pretty much the same problems. Just because you can predict how stuff interacts doesn't mean you understand how it reacts. I mean until we reach that point, when we say that "we understand our existence," it rings pretty hollow until we can say what makes us exist. (Hint: the answer is most likely not God) That's a pretty weird comment. My post is actually probably the least specualtive post in the thread. If you check an astronomy website you can see what I mean. You ellude to a "main ingredient" which seems like a shortcut to thinking. But I do know that without prediction we have speculation. And that means you've contradicted yourself.
Great answers. I see what you're saying Crunchy Cat about definitive vs. adaptable but the idea behind religion is like the martial arts. Be prepared for the battle ahead of time and train yourself on what to do so it becomes instinct and overcomes your own when you face impulsive decisions. That way you will hopefully make better decisions for yourself. I think that's a big difference between religious and non-religious people. Religious people study for the moral battles to be that they may face in life, not that it helps all the time though. And then again, non-religious people may do the same but of course not formally perhaps. Anyhow, I didn't mean for this to turn into a psychological analysis of myself but I guess it does play some role in religion. But I know who I am but I think I can be a better person, I'm just not exactly sure who I should be and if I should keep following the same moral code as before since just being "nice" promotes health and living but if we have too many people living and not being killed, that in itself will cause chaos by supply shortages and such and will provoke others to display deadly behavior to others. I'm just interested in knowing the ultimate consequence of being forgiving and saving others. If my morality is actually dangerous to society in the long-run. Is it right to save people from unhealthiness and danger in an already overpopulated world? Or who's to say it is overpopulated and that there's just too much of us indicating some should be expended? So for that matter, to even the atheists out there, why promote just being "nice" to people then? Is nuclear war a good bet since it will create a more sparce human population so resources aren't so limited? To have no set rules, being adaptable could mean killing people off in an overpopulated world for the good of mankind. So who do we decide to kill off? See, we have that moral dilemma. Then we're back to just each of us doing as we feel and seeming lawlessness. It's just too many questions so I just default back to my typical outlook of a mix of the Abrahamic religions. So I guess I get kind of defensive about it here. Is being forgiving and "nice" to people really so bad? Does it matter if I follow a religion and it's history may not seem too credible but the morals it teaches are the real substance of it. I think with a more densely populated world, life may seem to be more devalued. But is being human not something to be treasured? Look around us. We could just as easily not be human and just be another inanimate piece of earth in our huge galaxy. We are pretty much like gods compared to everything else in the solar system. Our brains give us control of so much. The millions of years it took for the universe, earth, and all to form to create us. I think you really do have to appreciate the time and forces involved to create us to really appreciate the human being. No matter how you believe we got here, you must admit a lot of great processes were involved and I think life should be of the utmost importance. I just can't accept the idea of 'thinning the herd' or actively letting Darwin's law take it's course and letting the weak die. I think when you really appreciate something you have hope for it. Perhaps man will think of something to overcome our limited resources and the problems that be in a manner that is non-destructive to other humans. So until someone can provide a better answer, I think Jesus, or for some of you, the man or men or made him up, was onto something. To me, the history and origin is irrelevant. Like finding a tool laying on the ground. You don't know where it comes from or when but you know it works for what you need and for the moment so it's considered good. I don't think there's really that much to argue about the Abrahamic religions unless you believe they were supposed to be from a perfect man or from God Himself. There's happenings in it which are morally arguable but if you do something which is morally arguable, should I just totally reject you or just deem what you done as wrong and move on. I question all I read but I do understand it's all from man and everyone may not agree on it all and it's bound to have mistakes and contradictions because of the length and number of holy texts, after all, they're supposedly from different men. The only dangerous thing about any religion is those that take it literally word for word and without question while being forceful to convey it's message. Anyone with sense can tell you why an act is considered wrong without quoting from a religious text. And if I can't tell you why it's wrong just because a certain religious text says so and can't back it up with real world applications, then I discount it. Not all Christians, Muslims, or Jews are sheep. I just want to make that clear and want to help speak up for at least a few of them on some ideas.
There's no contradiction, one can assume many things, it does not mean that it will come to pass. You are not taking in consideration human consciousness and it's will to survive, that is if we don't comit genocide for religious absurdities. Our knowledge is very limited right now, but look at what we been able to accomplish just in the last century. Now you are clearly not thinking of what we may be able to accomplish say in the next millinium, now your speculation is millions of years into the future, just the thought of what we may or may have not know about our universe is truly speculation. Why not, millions of years learning. Who is to say what we may or may not be able to do? Certainly not you. Nor I.
The root of your failure in this point is blind faith in science to overcome any barrier of physics. Science is physics. You can't change that. Why do you think we haven't bumped into another species alien to our world? Statistically, if space travel was possible, then the galaxy ought to be covered with with them. Solar fusion is irreversible. We are stuck on a death rock. Humans will be factored out on the time scale of at the most 100,000 years. It could be as few as two hundred years if there were to be some sort of dramatic climate shift. Massive crop failures coupled with energy wars could generate that sort of pessimistic prediction. Do you think I like knowing that sort of horrible thing? The truth about the nature of our universe is pretty depressing.
