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Talya
 Post subject: Re: Re:
PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:53 pm 
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Khross wrote:
Aizle wrote:
Great video, and predictable responses from the posters here. With the possible exception of Farsky, I would have thought he'd get it.
Something about anti-religious pablum comes to mind. Consequently, I think it's time for a little lesson faith.

It takes faith of the most egregious kind to disavow and deny the existence of a god, gods, or any other pantheon.



It takes faith to believe in the nonexistence of God? Yeah, perhaps, if you present it dogmatically. Does it take faith to disbelieve in god?

No. It's the default state. Since we make up religion, (and that does NOT take faith. Any divine-type being who might exist has not personally revealed themselves to the masses at large), there is no reason whatsoever to believe in a God by default. Every child is born an agnostic or "weak atheist."

The video is not "emo," nor is it a dawkins style of "hard atheism." It is a rather logical look at a hard truth: we are just animals. Humanity may be the pinnacle of evolution on this world (that's debatable, actually--there are far more successful organisms by some criteria), but if you want to talk hubris, assuming that there's something particularly special that sets us apart from the rest of the life on this planet (grouping all such life together -- obviously each species is unique and "special" in that way) is the height of pride. We're "monkeys," as the video in the OP so simplisticly puts it...just another growth in the big spherical iron petrie dish we call Earth.

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Kaffis Mark V
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:57 pm 
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Rafael wrote:
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I don't understand why nihilism and optimism must be diametrically opposed. There's nothing wrong with being insignificant or powerless. Nor struggling in vain despite such knowledge. Isn't that when humanity is the most beautifuL?

Beauty is meaningless.

In short, it's Neo answering the Agent Smith clone currupted from the orcale at the end of the etrilogy when she asks hi, why he persists in vain and for reasosn that are completely without meaning or purpose:

Because we choose to .

And that choice isn't some noble, inspirational thing. It has no meaning, to think that the choice justifies anything or says anything about the person choosing is meaningless vanity that pointlessly and futilely opposes the reality that you are nothing, and nothing you do, even if you choose to do it, matters. The choice doesn't even matter.

See what a lousy nihilist you are?

Just like this guy, in fact. "Evangelical" nihilism is pointless, too. It doesn't matter if he convinces anybody, so going to all this effort to produce this video to try is its own kind of hypocrisy.

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Last edited by DFK! on Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Diamondeye
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 12:58 pm 
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Talya wrote:
It takes faith to believe in the nonexistence of God? Yeah, perhaps, if you present it dogmatically. Does it take faith to disbelieve in god?

No. It's the default state. Since we make up religion, (and that does NOT take faith. Any divine-type being who might exist has not personally revealed themselves to the masses at large), there is no reason whatsoever to believe in a God by default. Every child is born an agnostic or "weak atheist."

The video is not "emo," nor is it a dawkins style of "hard atheism." It is a rather logical look at a hard truth: we are just animals. Humanity may be the pinnacle of evolution on this world (that's debatable, actually--there are far more successful organisms by some criteria), but if you want to talk hubris, assuming that there's something particularly special that sets us apart from the rest of the life on this planet (grouping all such life together -- obviously each species is unique and "special" in that way) is the height of pride. We're "monkeys," as the video in the OP so simplisticly puts it...just another growth in the big spherical iron petrie dish we call Earth.


All of this is, as Khross pointed out, a faith-based argument in and of itself. You're not pointing out any hard truths; you're just stating what you beleive.

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Rafael
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That it doesnt matter shouldnt and does not matter.

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Talya
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:20 pm 
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Diamondeye wrote:
All of this is, as Khross pointed out, a faith-based argument in and of itself. You're not pointing out any hard truths; you're just stating what you beleive.



No. I'm stating what we observe. I'm stating the tangible, what we can see, hear, feel, touch, taste. I'm stating the bare science of it, the biology. From a scientific standpoint, there's nothing inherent that sets humanity apart from the rest of "Creation." We are animals. Perhaps highly evolved animals in many respects, but still just animals. "Belief" based on what we can observe doesn't require faith.*

Believing in anything else requires us to make metaphysical assumptions, and that is where faith comes in.

* I know someone will take this to the ridiculous extreme of the solipsist who doesn't trust his own senses, but all animals trust their senses. A cat does not have "faith" that the mouse it sees and hears is real, it just instinctually follows naturally. We do the same.

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Diamondeye
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:33 pm 
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Talya wrote:
No. I'm stating what we observe. I'm stating the tangible, what we can see, hear, feel, touch, taste. I'm stating the bare science of it, the biology. From a scientific standpoint, there's nothing inherent that sets humanity apart from the rest of "Creation." We are animals. Perhaps highly evolved animals in many respects, but still just animals. "Belief" based on what we can observe doesn't require faith.*


No, you're not. You're drawing conclusions based on what you observe and you're choosing which observations to put credence in. I observe all those things, and I also observe that someone wrote down observations on many occasions over history where they encountered the metaphysical.

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Believing in anything else requires us to make metaphysical assumptions, and that is where faith comes in.


Yes it does, but we do not simply chose which to make out of thin air. Which we chose are based on our observations of history.

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* I know someone will take this to the ridiculous extreme of the solipsist who doesn't trust his own senses, but all animals trust their senses. A cat does not have "faith" that the mouse it sees and hears is real, it just instinctually follows naturally. We do the same.


Really not relevant.

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Kaffis Mark V
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The person who states that they simply believe what they observe is wrong. They are basing their beliefs on the faith that if they can't observe something, it cannot be real.

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Dash
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:56 pm 
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Talya wrote:
The video is not "emo," nor is it a dawkins style of "hard atheism." It is a rather logical look at a hard truth: we are just animals.


While I agree with much of the agnostic take, I say again this video is almost grotesquely emo, which is saying something. This video, or my take of it, is that the author wants to pound home the concept that we (humanity) are nothing special. In fact in many ways less special than other animals. And how foolish are those who think we are anything more, so let me rephrase humanity's plight with the term monkey instead of man or human and also include the seedier chapters, and backhandedly downplay any bright spots.

It's emo on steroids. I have to say I didnt pick up too much of an anti-religious vibe personally, it seemed more incidental than a focus.

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Aizle
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Well at least Talya gets it.

The rest of you guys are making a mountain out of a mole hill, and missing the point.

Humans have way too much pride, think too much of themselves and therefore cause the vast majority of their own problems.
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DFK!
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:35 pm 
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@ Talya: Which other animal on the planet has sapience?

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Khross
 Post subject: Re: What we are.
PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:43 pm 
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DFK!:

Pretty much every mammal on the planet demonstrates sapience to some degree or another. After all, there are Chimpanzees that build weapons and war over finite resources and food in Africa.

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DFK!
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Competition for resources is not an example for sapience.

"Pretty much every X" is a broad generalization that doesn't prove your contention.

The construction of weapons is a solid piece of evidence, though. I'd still argue that the sapience of humans is scientifically "special," counter to Talya's point. Otherwise, the chimps would run the place.

And we all know what that means.

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Khross
 Post subject: Re: What we are.
PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 2:56 pm 
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DFK!:

Sapience is simply the demonstration of judgment, which is pretty much every mammal on the planet.

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DFK!
 Post subject: Re: What we are.
PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:02 pm 
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Khross wrote:
DFK!:

Sapience is simply the demonstration of judgment, which is pretty much every mammal on the planet.


Yes, that's all it is if you ignore the other half of the definition, which includes the application of knowledge.

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Wwen
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:19 pm 
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Khross wrote:
Aizle wrote:
Great video, and predictable responses from the posters here. With the possible exception of Farsky, I would have thought he'd get it.
Something about anti-religious pablum comes to mind. Consequently, I think it's time for a little lesson faith.

It takes faith of the most egregious kind to disavow and deny the existence of a god, gods, or any other pantheon. You must assume and take as truth that the possibility of an unknown entity or entities is indeed fact without any evidence or exigent reality to substantiate your claim. In your own personal need to justify existence, you have chosen the least likely of currently debated probabilities as fact and rational without considering that it takes a great leap of faith and poorer logic to say, "I know there are no gods," than it does to say, "I believe in a God for these reasons."

So, while the video is ranting so eloquently about the monkeys on this planet inventing their gods, he kindly forgets that he's inventing his own deus ex machina just as you have. Amusingly enough, your both wrong on one very important matter: atheism has proven far more murderous than religion could have ever aspire to. And the next time you decide it behooves you to buy into a little screed, fact check your history first: atheism and secular regents waged far more wars and claimed far more lives than the religions you like to blame for all the ills in the world.


He's incredibly smug for "just a monkey." I guess he's just a monkey w/ video editing skills. I guess he's the big baboon and enjoys schadenfreude salad everyday before wallowing in his nihilism. I'm not as eloquent as Khross, so just imagine me making a wanking motion with my hand as I roll my eyes in response to this video. You know, typical monkey behavior.

I also really want to pat my own back that I managed to spell schadenfreude correctly the first time without ever having typed it before.

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Khross
 Post subject: Re: What we are.
PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:21 pm 
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DFK!:

I didn't remove any half of the definition. Both of the links indicate an application of knowledge. Your definition of knowledge, however, is anthropocentric. The mouse that knows where the crevices and escape routes in a house happen to be is applying knowledge when it evades the cat.

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Talya
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Kaffis Mark V wrote:
The person who states that they simply believe what they observe is wrong. They are basing their beliefs on the faith that if they can't observe something, it cannot be real.



Not at all. That would actually require a belief that if they cannot observe something, it cannot be real....which isn't stated. Of course it could be real. However, there's absolutely no way to know, or to even think of such a thing. There are in fact infinite possibilities of things that could be real that we could not observe. The oft-mentioned invisible pink unicorn in my closet is the perfect example. There's no way to prove or disprove it. It could, of course, be there. However, there's also no reason to believe in it, or to give it more than a second's thought. It's not a matter of those things not being possible, it's a matter of those things being irrelevant. We cannot observe them, so we can't know anything about them. It is illogical and pointless to dwell on them.

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Talya
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DFK!: The nature of any criteria by which people try to measure the nebulous qualities of "sapience" are rather poorly defined, and very human-centric, as they often rely on experiences utterly foreign to other species. Tellingly, most primates pass all of those criteria, just the same, whereas other animals that have different "values" (for lack of a better word) have a hard time with them. The world and mind of the octopus (one of the most intelligent species on the planet) or other cephalopods is so alien to us it's hard to judge them, although it's evident they are highly intelligent. It says how incredibly intelligent they are that many species of dolphins pass every "sapience" or "sentience" test people have come up with, despite a very alien frame of reference.

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Coren
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 07, 2009 4:23 pm 
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Talya wrote:
It takes faith to believe in the nonexistence of God?

...

No. I'm stating what we observe. I'm stating the tangible, what we can see, hear, feel, touch, taste.


Clipped from 2 seperate Talya posts. But personally, the more I observe, see, hear, feel, touch, and taste; the more I learn from science about how the universe works; the more compelling the argument is that creation could not have been coincidental.

And of course, that's not taking into account the conversations with the guy who created it. ;)
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Dash
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I'm at a similar point I think Coren. The more I delve into physics and theories on how the universe formed the more it comes down to a certain set of extremely tough to believe events. Be it creation or random chance.

Right now for me it's a toss up between God and a Multiverse. Although the existence of either doesnt preclude each other so ... uhh... yeah.

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Talya
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Dash wrote:
Right now for me it's a toss up between God and a Multiverse. Although the existence of either doesnt preclude each other so ... uhh... yeah.


I believe the "Many Worlds Interpretation" is currently in favor among quantum physicists.

God doesn't actually answer any of the questions in those "hard to believe" events, however. For instance, "First Cause," if such a thing is even relevent or sensible, is still an equal problem with or without a divine being. And yet, everything exists. I chalk that up more to our own lack of knowledge and understanding than the unbelievability of it all.

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Aizle
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Interesting. The more I learn about physics and astronomy and history, the more obvious it is that God was manufactured by man.

Obviously YMMV
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Khross
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Aizle wrote:
Interesting. The more I learn about physics and astronomy ... the more obvious it is that God was manufactured by man. Obviously YMMV
If you want this statement to be accurate, then the more you learn about the science the more you cannot answer the question either way.

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Aizle
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Khross wrote:
Aizle wrote:
Interesting. The more I learn about physics and astronomy ... the more obvious it is that God was manufactured by man. Obviously YMMV
If you want this statement to be accurate, then the more you learn about the science the more you cannot answer the question either way.


Yes, we've had this discussion before. It's why I describe myself as an agnostic-atheist.

I really don't know why you keep beating this dead horse, because I've stated on numerous occasions here, that I agree it's impossible to prove or disprove the existence of a god. Or as Taly's pointed out, an invisible pink elephant in my closet.

However, as I've educated myself over the years, and science has continued to make discoveries and provide explanations for how/why things are the way they are, less and less needs "And God said 'let there be...'" to explain it. There is some good education in the Bible for how to be a good person, but really nothing earth shaking that can't be found in any number of other good texts.
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Elmarnieh
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Its a truth that as one enter's into the hard sciences that the belief in God goes down - up to a point and then as one progresses it increases past the original point.

Science can answer a how question but it is always followed by a how question. Science cannot address why questions.

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