Does God exist? (16 Viewers)

[ur_inner_child]

stop fucking spamming you horrible children

 

[Slidey]

Yeah... anyway.

BradCube, I believe you stated that evolution is fundamentally an intelligently designed process.

You said something like: DNA is looks like it is intelligently designed, and that you doubt random chance could produce such complexity.

Here's an example of an experiment that proves nucleic acid polymers (RNA, DNA) will evolve randomly, and do so under selective pressure:

http://physorg.com/news128181162.html

And the self-assembling nucleic acid polymers used in that study were snippets of RNA previously randomly generated. Randomly generated - a bunch of nucleic acids were thrown together and, as predicted, structure eventually emerged as, while many of the nucleic acids formed bonds as polymers, it was the nucleic acids that could replicate which were most common in the end. Why? Because if something can reproduce, it's hard to kill. But if it can't reproduce, it dies and stays dead.

In summary, point of interest number 1: a bunch of nucleic acids were thrown together, many polymers formed and broke apart, eventually one emerged which could self-replicate, then exponential growth took hold until it dominated the sample. Point of interest number 2: said RNA polymer was then increasingly exposed to a selective pressure with the end result being the evolved RNA was almost twice as efficient at processing 'food' as the initial RNA strand.

And thus complexity was created without even a guiding hand from humans (and was a thoroughly random process). All that humans did was provide the starting conditions and selective pressure, but as previously demonstrated, these also exist in nature without human intervention. As such, one can conclude that it is 100% possible for evolution and life to begin and prosper without intelligent design.

 

[HalcyonSky]

http://physorg.com/news128181162.html

The evidence keeps on mounting. Good news.

 

[KFunk]

It never was. Democracy has really dumbed down civilization.

To me that seems like one of those claims which would do well to take heed of the idiom "the grass is always greener on the other side". While I won't go so far as to attribute the above claim to you (given your penchant for ironic parody), I nonetheless think that claims like what you wrote above are often made with reference to unrealistic, romantic ideals. Perhaps we lost aspects of the wealthy, educated elite of old (Nietzschean overmen, perhaps, who stood on the shoulders of the many) in favour of a broader, more mass-consumed education system. But does that really constitute dumbing down civilization when it involves providing some semblance of education for all who possess the requisite cognitive abilities? Nonetheless, I don't think that we've lost the 'elite' either. We still have our Rhodes scholars wandering the halls of top tier institutions like oxbridge, Harvard, MIT, NYU, etc. with their associated faculties. Also, you need to stop making the mistake of using the 'anything goes' description for the relativist state/society (lest you fall prey to the "hsc/useless-wasted degree" that you so bemoan).

 

[Stevo.]

Science is insurmountable evidence.
Religion is insurmountable ignorance.

 

[Iron]

I was bemoaning the worship of mediocrity in modern society, which I partly blame on liberal-democracy.
Maybe God doesnt exist, but I dont think that the result has been any real liberation of humanity. The fact is that he has been replaced by nationalism and (now) individualism: We diefy ourselves; we still believe in God.

I think that Atheists really miss the significance of reports on God's death - it means that truth is dead too. The logical conclusion is that any belief - no matter the linguistic constructions which necessarily decieve users into believing that there is perfection, purity, truth - is worthless.
You cant have it both ways. Either truth exists, or it doesnt. If it doesnt, then you cannot hide behind science, ethics etc, which is just another submission to the will to power of others, like Christians, who have made false claims to absolute truth for their own power. You have to take responsibility for your own reality, your own will to power.

 

[JaredR]

G-d exists because I have the faith to believe he does.

Any further discussion is psuedo-intellectual, does not change anyones views and is a waste of time. There is no solid proof either way that he exists or not.

Debating religion does not make you intellectual.

 

[Iron]

JaredR is an example of the weak who need foundational beliefs for their survival. I respect this position and wish him well.

 

[JaredR]

Iron should follow the rules that the rest of us are supposed to follow, which means not personally attacking people.

 

[Slidey]

G-d exists because I have the faith to believe he does.

Any further discussion is psuedo-intellectual, does not change anyones views and is a waste of time. There is no solid proof either way that he exists or not.

Debating religion does not make you intellectual.

Actively questioning one's beliefs, one's society, one's most basic 'truths' is an important intellectual tool. You needn't change your mind in the end, but you should constantly question, nonetheless.

To do anything else is what is not intellectual.

 

[KFunk]

I think that Atheists really miss the significance of reports on God's death - it means that truth is dead too. The logical conclusion is that any belief - no matter the linguistic constructions which necessarily decieve users into believing that there is perfection, purity, truth - is worthless.

I'm not sure why you see truth as dying with god. Plato certainly made arguments for the independence of morality from god, i.e. in Plato's Euthyphro a dialectical argument is made, claiming that things are not 'pious' in virtue of the fact that they are loved by the gods, but rather the gods simply happen to love that which is pious. In other words, Plato argues that 'the good' should not be defined relative to god but should instead be defined in terms of some kind of (Platonic) absolute.

Euthyphro's dilemma is that if 'the pious' is defined relative to god then we are reduced to a divine relativism, since the good depends on the whim of god. Some will argue that god is limited to a single conception of the good. We might then ask 'why is god limited?' The typical response suggests that we are dealing with some kind of logical necessity. But then it is logical necessity, not god, which determines what is good after all... etc...

Thus, if 'the good' were truly to die with god it seems that we are only loosing a relative form of good anyway. Platonic absolutes will still remain. Similar arguments, in my humble opinion, pertain to truth as well.

You cant have it both ways. Either truth exists, or it doesnt. If it doesnt, then you cannot hide behind science, ethics etc, which is just another submission to the will to power of others, like Christians, who have made false claims to absolute truth for their own power. You have to take responsibility for your own reality, your own will to power.

I don't think it is quite that simple. Some areas of discourse may continue to admit of truth/falsity whilst others cease to do so. For example, few people these days would have trouble admitting that aesthetic claims are essentially statements of preference and that if we are to ever call them true we only mean 'true' in a relative sense. It's possible for aesthetics, theology and ethics to sink into a relativist quagmire while empirical science remains standing. It is similarly possible, of course, that science will go down with the rest of the ship, but it is a mistake to think that this is a necessary outcome.

 

[Iron]

O very well, I was slopping a broad stroke of the brush with my poison on all metaphysical arguments, whether that's the Platonic ideal, the Christian soul or the Kantian thing-in-itself.

I adore empirical science to the extent that it attempts to make our experience intelligible, but deplore the tendancy to crown it with absolute truth. When that happens, it merely becomes the new religion. The problem as I see it is the distinction between reality and appearance. I doubt that there is one. It's all appearance. 'Reality' pawns itself off as the absolute truth with very little basis.

This is all part of a grand war on language. It fools men into believing that there is pure reason, when all we really have are constructions of perfect realities which dont/cant perfectly match up with our experience. Whether this is liberating or nihilistic, I havent decided yet.

 

[_dhj_]

I think it is detrimental to see god as a reference point of "truth". In the technical sense, truth exists, truth is everything that exists and everything that exists is true. But that is not how truth is normally interpreted. It's normally interpreted in an exclusive and divisive manner. A exists and is the truth, B exists and is not the truth. That interpretation then requires an adjudicator to determine whether A and/or B are true. The adjudicator, if he or she exists can only be interpreted by other interpreters, and the whole mechanism collapses to the point where every interpreter acts in fact as the adjudicator. Even if one assumes that there is truth (given this definition), it is impossible to determine what the truth is.

 

[_dhj_]

But the real purpose of the notion of God is to alleviate the real human tragedy, and the real human tragedy is the fact that every human being can only access a part of the whole truth, and not the whole truth itself. The purpose of the God delusion lies in the idea that he or she is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. He or she is then the link between the parts of the whole truth, and human beings find comfort in the impossible idea that they, through god, can be connected with the other parts of the truth. Of course, they cannot, god does not exist and the human tragedy cannot be alleviated.

 

[Salchow]

There're a lot of "weirdness" in Christianity which has turned me away...if I asked a Christian about what I don't understand, they'd just go on about what they know but in reality, try to convert me.

That's biased.

There's a lot of mysteries in the religion.

From a Buddhist point of view, yes God exists, Buddhas exist...every higher being exists...but we're too mortal to see it.

 

[Stevo.]

But the real purpose of the notion of God is to alleviate the real human tragedy, and the real human tragedy is the fact that every human being can only access a part of the whole truth, and not the whole truth itself. The purpose of the God delusion lies in the idea that he or she is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent. He or she is then the link between the parts of the whole truth, and human beings find comfort in the impossible idea that they, through god, can be connected with the other parts of the truth. Of course, they cannot, god does not exist and the human tragedy cannot be alleviated.

Human Instrumentality Project.

 

[Iron]

Dhj, my dear fellow, in what do you ground your meaning and truth then? Yourself?

 

[Kwayera]

Why do you need something to ground meaning and truth?

 

[_dhj_]

Dhj, my dear fellow, in what do you ground your meaning and truth then? Yourself?

Well let's suppose that I believe it to be true (in the colloquial sense) that a certain tree in the forest fell and you believe it to be true that the tree is still standing, and let's then suppose that you are correct in the sense that the tree actually is still standing, what then is the truth? The truth is: 1) I believe the tree fell, 2) You believe the tree is still standing and 3) the tree is still standing. The belief as to the truth of something (even if it is correct) can never be that truth itself. It is only the truth in the sense that the belief exists. But once you break things down there's no real distinction between a truth of the belief and a physical truth, because a belief is a physical manifestation within a human being.

 

[Iron]

In total agreement.