Do you really believe in existence of Paradise and Hell after death?

[jazzmaster9]

Budoka said:

Blanket statements? I don't think so. Those assertions are pulled straight from your holy canon, though I suppose that, just like many religious people, you might not know that yourself. In this regard, Mechazawa, even though his attitude is much more irritating than yours, is at least a better believer.

You got me man, I don't know anything about my faith, If anyone should know it's someone who hates absolutely it.

You could have been part of the ministry with the "knowledge" you have about the Bible.
Kidding aside, I know my convictions, now if you can magically read my mind and know my faith, then I don't know what to tell you.

[Budoka]

That's just the thing, us anti-clericals usually know a lot more about the contents of "holy" books than religious people do. Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkl_PefewXc

And don't give me that nonsense about "incorrect interpretations". If religious texts were such a reliable source of morality as people claim, they wouldn't need so much "interpreting" (aka rewriting), and they wouldn't cause the spawns of hundred of splintered sects.

[jazzmaster9]

Budoka said:

That's just the thing, us anti-clericals usually know a lot more about the contents of "holy" books than religious people do. Case in point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkl_PefewXc

And don't give me that nonsense about "incorrect interpretations". If religious texts were such a reliable source of morality as people claim, they wouldn't need so much "interpreting" (aka rewriting), and they wouldn't cause the spawns of hundred of splintered sects.

Alright. I guess i cant really compete with a highly learned intellectual such as yourself. Im just a mid twenties christian man who mods Doom all day.
Apologies trying to waste your time.

[Doomkid]

On a personal level, it doesn't matter to me so much what someone believes - quality of character is what I truly value. With that said I can understand the frustration with the "how can you possibly think your one interpretation of religion is correct when there are millions and millions out there all with highly diverse views, if Christianity is right that only means a tiny fraction of the human population would be 'saved', also if you were born in a different country you'd probably be a Muslim or Jew or some other religion, doesn't it seem like what you believe is determined moreso by happenstance than by genuine objective reasoning" thing. I genuinely would enjoy hearing your responses to these issues, and would like to add (so that you know I'm not having a go at you) that I have several Christian friends who are all fantastic people. I don't think a difference in theories should prevent people from being buddies.

[insanoflex312]

Voros said:

insanoflex, think of it like this.

The body is hardware.
The mind is the software.

From the outside, a group of identical computers will look the same. But the software will be different, like Linux, Windows and OSX... Initially that is. Then after time, the linux may have many updates, the Windows one may have a few updates and OSX may have not even been updated at all.

The limits of the software are endless, but the hardware has a limit to everything.

Our minds grow everyday with new knowledge, both big and small, in many forms. But our body can just grow upto 40 then slowly wither, while our mind keeps growing further and further.
Its innovative. But the body is one time use.

Also, I'm not asking for a reason. Rather why it happens.

I'll just chime in here. Software is a physical entity. It can't exist without a physical medium. You damage the hardware, you can damage the software. Likewise, how do we know the mind is really separate from the brain? When you think about it, what software really is, is just a process of a computer. It has recognizable features and patterns, but that's just because we created it. Perhaps the brain and mind are connected in the same way. I personally believe so.
Also, the limits of software are the same as the limits of hardware.

[VGamingJunkie]

I see the brain as the physical computer and the mind as the person behind the computer. The person is antonymous, it can't just be purely the computer or else free will wouldn't exist as a computer can't make decisions purely on its own. If the computer is unable to function properly, that denies the person the ability to obtain information properly but the person still has free will. If our minds were just software, then we wouldn't be self aware to the extent that we are.

[Voros]

The software makes the hardware work properly. The hardware allows the support of the software. But this software can be moved fast with no damage. Moving hardware isn't (assuming hardware as a desktop PC), you have to more delicate. Moving said hardware as fast as software would cause immense damage.

You say the limits for both are the same.

Let's take another example: Doom 2016.

Games have increased in size and power over the years rapidly. Hardware, not so much.
Doom is 55gb, and with Bluray-50 gb max storage. That's still not enough. Even if you download the rest 5 gb, why should you? You bought a physical copy to avoid digital downloading at least. And yet you not only bought the disc, but were forced to also download data too. Hardware hasn't caught up with software.

[Koko Ricky]

While the vast majority of the universe is comprised of matter that cannot organize itself into conscious (whatever that means), self-reflecting, thinking entities, there are at a handful of such entities, at least here on Earth. And a few of these entities have managed to realize that, at some fundamental level, we are made of microscopic building blocks that interact in various ways that include chemical, electrical, biological, gravitational and quantum behaviors. Science is literally the only form of philosophy we know of (keep in mind that in Newton's time scientists were called "natural philosophers") capable of providing these incredible insights. So, while I called out insaneoflex32 for being scientifically dogmatic, it's not like I refuse to recognize its contributions to human knowledge. I just think he's a touch too invested in the idea that science provides concrete answers, when the truth of the matter is that it's driven by biased humans with limited sensory inputs, struggling to use prediction and observation to approximate very limited (but often fundamental) aspects of the Cosmos.

However, and this a big however, the mind/matter duality issue has been in a thorn in the side of science for a very long time. Thoughts, dreams, fantasies, hallucinations, feelings and our general ability to simulate events internally is dismissed as "not real," as though there is some magical separation between the familiar atomic world and the uncomfortably inexplainable dimension of the mind. Reducing phenomenon to "real" and "not real" is awful convenient, because everything that is "not real" is, coincidentally, poorly understood by science and not subject to microscopic or telescopic scrutiny.

Beyond the curiousness of knowing that the mind is poorly understood, science is also unable to touch upon how the mind relates to the formation and eventual decay of the physical body. We use terms like "birth" and "death" to draw a line in the sand, which I find silly because it's as though you can use a stopwatch to determine at which nanosecond you are born and at which interval you die. We think we understand these processes because of biological changes, as though that's the end of the story.

Psychedelic compounds muddy things up further. Once again, many dismiss the experiences as "not real," even though any experience is literally real, be it a thought or a physical action. It's impossible for something to not be real. Flying pigs? They're real, as an internal concept, but not real, as a physical, observable phenomenon. Math floats between the two. It is an abstract, non-physical concept, but you can use it to make sense of physical things, and the application of math is a physical process, be it pen and paper or typing on a computer.

In other words, the psychedelic experience should be taken seriously. It is absolutely amazing to me that not only are we humans tiny slivers of the universe reflecting on itself, but there are atomic structures floating in this universe which drastically alter the way reality is experienced (and not just temporarily--studies are showing that psilocybin can induce life-long changes in the psyche). We should seek to understand how ancient cultures interpreted these experiences, why these experiences seem to lead to the belief in a hierarchal system of consciousness, and why there is an opposition to the idea that, beyond the physical world, there might be something much more bizarre at play.

Of course, at the end of the day, I can't reveal anything and neither can anyone else. I can't pretend I understand my experiences or why they seem to relate to birth and death. I cannot act as though I know some Cosmic truth. And anyone who gravitates to scientific materialism should admit that some of the most basic aspects of existence (such as the ability to think or what death really encompasses) cannot yet be examined through any reliable means.

To conclude things, here are some amusing, ancient depictions of Christian mythology featuring mushrooms.

[Mechazawa]

To the question of God and the whole "religion vs athiesm" "debate".

It doesn't take a religious book to know that things do not create themselves. What doesn't exist doesn't have attributes; thus it cannot act upon those attributes (to create).

Take an atheist for example; show him a house and he will never under any circumstances believe that that house built itself. Yet, about the whole of the universe, which has a complexity that is unfathomably higher than anything humans could possibly ever hope to produce; he will tell you without hesitation and in all seriousness that it created itself.

That; or he will commit a logical fallacy and say it always existed.

The atheistic belief system is just as silly as the christian belief system. When you greet your atheist friend; tell him you travel to work by throwing rocks into the air and that they fall down forming a Toyota Corolla AE86; that is the essential belief that he holds in his heart.

(Yes, I know atheism has several sects and they all say different things about the origins of the universe, I'm referring to the atheist orthodoxy.)

[nxGangrel]

Oh boy. This is one of those threads.

"Do I really believe in existence of paradise after death?"
no
"Do I really believe in existence of hell after death?"
yes

[sudo459]

Voros said:

The software makes the hardware work properly. The hardware allows the support of the software. But this software can be moved fast with no damage. Moving hardware isn't (assuming hardware as a desktop PC), you have to more delicate. Moving said hardware as fast as software would cause immense damage.

You say the limits for both are the same.

Let's take another example: Doom 2016.

Games have increased in size and power over the years rapidly. Hardware, not so much.
Doom is 55gb, and with Bluray-50 gb max storage. That's still not enough. Even if you download the rest 5 gb, why should you? You bought a physical copy to avoid digital downloading at least. And yet you not only bought the disc, but were forced to also download data too. Hardware hasn't caught up with software.

Do you think downloading is magic? What I meant about the limits being the same is that software can only "do" what the hardware can do.

[Voros]

No, but it can be a pain in the ass, and a physical copy basically just gives it to right in your hands in one second.

But the software can go beyond what the hardware can do, if the hardware can handle it. Imagine Doom 2016 in 2004.

[Reisal]

Nope.

We just rot.

[sudo459]

Voros said:

No, but it can be a pain in the ass, and a physical copy basically just gives it to right in your hands in one second.

But the software can go beyond what the hardware can do, if the hardware can handle it. Imagine Doom 2016 in 2004.

I guess technically someone can create a program for hardware that either doesn't exist right now or that isn't up to par. But you are missing the point. Software is just instructions for hardware. Nothing more. That's why its limited by the hardware. Also, they didn't create doom 2016 in 2004 because hardware at the time wasn't up to the task (and I'm sure a whole host of other reasons).

Also, if the software goes beyond what the hardware can do, but the hardware can handle it, did it really go beyond what the hardware can do?

This is what I think about the analogy. The mind and consciousness isn't the software, its the "process" running.

[Koko Ricky]

Glaice said:

Nope.

We just rot.

Based on what?

[Quast]

GoatLord said:

I cannot act as though I know some Cosmic truth.

Are you trying to claim that science does? A scientific understanding of anything is not a claim for some kind of "cosmic truth" whatever the hell that means. What like: the ultimate answer to the ultimate question or something? The thing that even it's proponents can barley attempt to quantify let alone justify?

What scientific fields of inquiry even attempts to non-jokingly answer such things?

And anyone who gravitates to scientific materialism should admit that some of the most basic aspects of existence (such as the ability to think or what death really encompasses) cannot yet be examined through any reliable means.

I completely disagree that either of those things are somehow magically out of bounds for understanding.

You ever heard the phrase, "you are born alone, you die alone, and you trip alone"? A psychedelic experience is a wholly subjective state of being regardless of the majesty and awe you may feel. Science is and must be objective, else why have it?

[Budoka]

Mechazawa said:

To the question of God and the whole "religion vs athiesm" "debate".

It doesn't take a religious book to know that things do not create themselves. What doesn't exist doesn't have attributes; thus it cannot act upon those attributes (to create).

Take an atheist for example; show him a house and he will never under any circumstances believe that that house built itself. Yet, about the whole of the universe, which has a complexity that is unfathomably higher than anything humans could possibly ever hope to produce; he will tell you without hesitation and in all seriousness that it created itself.

That; or he will commit a logical fallacy and say it always existed.

The atheistic belief system is just as silly as the christian belief system. When you greet your atheist friend; tell him you travel to work by throwing rocks into the air and that they fall down forming a Toyota Corolla AE86; that is the essential belief that he holds in his heart.

(Yes, I know atheism has several sects and they all say different things about the origins of the universe, I'm referring to the atheist orthodoxy.)

There are two things wrong with this:

-Everything needs a creator, but the original creator itself doesn't? That's special pleading.

-How does comparing the universe to something that was built prove the universe was also built? That's not how logic works.

While I'm at it, other apologists often use the metaphor of a flowered garden, saying it needs a gardener to grow. Which is funny, because plenty of the plants in my garden have grown without any gardening being done. Nature and the elements just made them sprout on their own, but still, obviously, people who have more respect and admiration for that than for some improbable creation story are somehow the simple ones.

[Quasar]

Mechazawa said:

It doesn't take a religious book to know that things do not create themselves. What doesn't exist doesn't have attributes; thus it cannot act upon those attributes (to create).

Oh boy it's that tired old watchmaker argument again. Try looking up any of the 8000 essays on why this is a complete garbage argument, as I'm certainly not going to waste my time trying to do it for you.

[Mechazawa]

Budoka said:

There are two things wrong with this:

-Everything needs a creator, but the original creator itself doesn't? That's special pleading.

-How does comparing the universe to something that was built prove the universe was also built? That's not how logic works.

Creations are bodies (matter) with attributes and they change. The one that created the first body is not a body Himself. "Change" is a body going from one state to another, what doesn't have a body doesn't change. God is not a body and God does not change.

So yes, what created the first creation was itself not something that was created. That isn't special pleading, that is logic.

Also, because bodies change (they are sequences), they by definition have a beginning. All sequences have beginnings. To say otherwise is a fallacy called the infinite regression fallacy. (Before anyone tries to spew nonsense about bodies always existing.)

A house is a system, the universe is a system. If a house (simple system) cannot form itself without an outside actor, a more complex system logically cannot form itself without an outside actor (not part of that system). All biological things, even according to atheists, require outside actors in order to grow, including an outside source of instructions on *how* to grow, DNA. Systems do not form at all without outside actors.

You could go even further and recognize that systems are simply collections of bodies, if the individual body cannot form itself then neither can the composite of bodies.

[Budoka]

Mechazawa said:

The one that created the first body is not a body Himself. "

the universe is a system.

Both baseless assertions. Or at least, the small angle under which they can be considered true practically renders them meaningless.

You're also operating under the assumption that everything surrounding us is in fact a creation, which you haven't demonstrated.

And yes, it is in fact possible for something not to have a source since we're going beyond the limits of the known universe. Causality is dependent on time to exist, so if no spacetime, no causality.

[darkreaver]

Mechazawa said:

That; or he will commit a logical fallacy and say it always existed.

It´s a logical fallacy only when based on us humans conception of "time".

Also, atheists say the universe created itself? Dont think so. My guess is most atheists say they dont know how the universe came to its current state (I mean what happened before the big band, how did the big bang happen etc etc etc). No one knows. Its perfectly fine to say "I dont know".

[Mechazawa]

Budoka said:

Both baseless assertions. Or at least, the small angle under which they can be considered true practically renders them meaningless.

You're also operating under the assumption that everything surrounding us is in fact a creation, which you haven't demonstrated.

And yes, it is in fact possible for something not to have a source since we're going beyond the limits of the known universe. Causality is dependent on time to exist, so if no spacetime, no causality.

It isn't a baseless assertion.

Axiom 1. Matter is what composes the entire universe. The known and unknown. The fact still remains that what we know about the universe is that it is composed of matter. The definition of "the universe" is "all matter". Matter and bodies are the same thing.

Axiom 2. All matter changes, hence all matter has a beginning.

Axiom 3. Ergo, what created matter, is not matter itself and does not change.

Those 3 things are indisputable facts. Not only that; outside of the context of a religious debate atheists unanimously agree on each individual point. They are all 3 also supported by "proven" science.

Time is a measurement of the changes in matter, it isn't a "thing" other than the attribute we give to the sequences we observe in matter. Theoretical physics and "spacetime" is just that; theoretical and not relevant to the discussion. We are talking about facts, axioms, only. Not theories people have. Don't muddy up the discussion with your conjecture and superstition.

Saying "There could be something we don't know about that makes you wrong." is not how you debate and also not how you find the truth. Such thinking only leads one to assuming that there is no truth at all because there is always something you don't know. Also, its a fallacy.

[Quasar]

Our current laws of physics do not adequately explain the beginning of the universe, the very moment of the big bang. Hawking's famous "cone of time" illustration begins with an asymptotically curved tip for a reason, and it's because you can get infinitely close to that point with a well-formed description under our theories, but never TO the point. So your common "an effect requires a cause" analogies simply do not apply to the point of the Big Bang, and any objection to that theory on the basis of "you're suggesting an effect without a cause" is meaningless. We have no way to describe a cause which is outside of time. And time began at the Big Bang.

There are plenty of hypotheses, such as many-worlds, multiverse theories, and brane physics under the umbrella of string theory, which might be able to suggest the "cause" for our universe as being something that lies outside of it, but these are so incomplete, and ultimately unsatisfying because now one faces the equal dilemma of "why" there is a multiverse or a higher-dimensional brane lattice, or whatever our universe is a part of. You moved the problem without really answering it.

[Mechazawa]

Quasar said:

Our current laws of physics do not adequately explain the beginning of the universe, the very moment of the big bang. Hawking's famous "cone of time" illustration begins with an asymptotically curved tip for a reason, and it's because you can get infinitely close to that point with a well-formed description under our theories, but never TO the point. So your common effect requires a cause analogies simply do not apply to the point of the Big Bang, and any objection to that theory on the basis of "you're suggesting an effect without a cause" is meaningless. We have no way to describe a cause which is outside of time. And time began at the Big Bang.

The big bang theory is just a theory; someone's opinion. It isn't relevant to the discussion. Knowledge that is not proven fact is not to be considered at all. Otherwise you are trying to build the "truth" based on incomplete and unproven information.

If you are going to base your argument on things you cannot prove (theories) then you are no different than a christian. Next, you will tell me that theories don't have to be proven to be accepted.. and I will tell you that you just copy pasted christian theology. Both Christians and atheists believe in things they cannot prove. Both will tell you that proof is not required because of faith/scientific relativity.

[Quasar]

Mechazawa said:

The big bang theory is just a theory; someone's opinion. It isn't relevant to the discussion. Knowledge that is not proven absolute fact is not to be considered at all.

If you are going to base your argument on things you cannot prove (theories) then you are no different than a christian. Next, you will tell me that theories don't have to be proven to be accepted.. and I will tell you that you just copy pasted christian theology. Both Christians and atheists believe in things they cannot prove. Both will tell you that proof is not required because of faith/scientific relativity.

No, I will tell you that the difference is that theories are based on observational confirmation, whereas religion is based on what some old man who climbed up a mountain, got dehydrated and suffered from apoxia, and then saw a hallucination of a gigantic bearded older man in the sky telling him to write down some shit on stone tablets and then kick the ass of anybody that didn't agree with his mental shit-trip.

[Mechazawa]

Quasar said:

observational confirmation

So, you hallucinated something and then believed in it. Further more you cannot prove you didn't hallucinate.

[Quasar]

Mechazawa said:

So, you hallucinated something and then believed in it. Further more you cannot prove you didn't hallucinate.

Yes right. When they mapped the cosmic background radiation and it came out in a pattern that was exactly consistent with the predictions made by the Big Bang theory, that was a hallucination. Sure.

[dew]

ITT: Philosophy students making assertions about physics without knowing about physics, again. Hilarity ensues.

[Remilia Scarlet]

"EE" is starting to once again feel like "Religion and Politics".

[Doomkid]

Mechazawa said:

what created matter, is not matter itself and does not change.

I missed the part where you gave evidence that this "non-matter creator of matter" exists.

Mechazawa said:

Further more you cannot prove you didn't hallucinate.

Literally every murderer just got off the hook with this line of reasoning. "You can't PROVE I wasn't hallucinating when I murdered those kids!"