Topic: A Question to Atheists ? (Read 485 times)

Is it that you believe in God is fashionable to get a ticket to heaven? There are many people who believe in God and have done terrible things. There are many atheists who live a righteous life. You can't make a person believe. Faith is either there or not. You ask why atheists take the risk? The answer is that if God exists, then judging from the bible, he awards not a witness but for deeds. Live fair and you will get what you deserve

In the world there's good and bad, as there are bad atheist, I know there are good and righteous atheist people as well, so are Christians, they can do horrible things even when not supposed to, every rule has it's exceptions, but things happen, everyone will be judged based on their actions not words.

If one leaned toward the unproven view that the Universe (or the local area) was rich in sentience, and ways were know to allow distant communication, given the prior note about certainty of rapid AI development. This seems to render virtually all God-concepts quaint and obsolete, as well as concepts of atheism. The latter tend to be reactionary against perceived fallacies in God-concepts, forming an "A and not-A" pair.

In the unproven view that the Universe was sparse in sentience, without distant communications, there would exist spheres of knowable and findable sentience around certain stars. The size of the sphere would be the limit of the speed of light times the time that race had communications capability. Bubbles here and there, essentially.

Non of this really has anything to do with ET, it explores God-concepts. It does not destroy concepts of Christianity or Islam but dwarfs them with a reality far vaster and richer. I say "nothing to do with ET" because we're strictly looking at whether other consciousness exist and it's implications. A sentience could for example have converted 10% of the silicon on a planet's surface to logic gates and "be the planet." What IQ would that thing have? Obviously that's a ridiculous question. It wouldn't even be life as we think of it. Any calculation of its capability, done by comparison of the number of logic gates with that of the human mind, would show it trillions of times more capable. Most would have no problem with a "weakly God like" designation, but none would understand or comprehend such a thing.

Although in the next millennia the human race certainly will be looking at these questions and may find some off-Earth sentience, ridiculously advanced AI will be forever an enigma. We're no more capable of understanding it than a cockroach is capable of understanding us. Envision a local area with millions of such, that would be the sentience-rich universe concept.

In conclusion, I have some difficulty taking the currently discussed God-concept duality seriously.

I am intrigued, please continue.

I have an opinion that such discussions are limited hopelessly by the grammar, as might have been discussions about math in an Indian tribe whose set of words for numbers were "one, two and many."

The central question is whether the universe, or the local subset of it if one wishes, is intelligence/consciousness rich or intelligence/conscious poor. There is no need to limit this to biological creatures, it's an abstract discussion. If it is
"poor" there is a question where that is caused a speed of light limit on communications.

In the first case, there would be massive sentience; in the second, something like oasis of sentience in vast deserts. But these things have had billions of years to develop, there have been several generations of stars.

Today it is popular to ask when we may create super-AI, but the above indicates it's likely been around a very long time. Somewhere, perhaps not here. Whatever one wishes to call such a thing. Charles Stross used a phraseology "weakly God-like."

Clearly this is a different, more detailed and more nuanced look at the matter than monotheism would argue, but it argues neither for or against monotheism. However, I can't fathom why any one would waste time worrying or debating the existence or not of a god, when the existence of sentience outside and beyond humans had implications that at least partly address that question.

Why? Because it's not just going to be a few ET types. It will be the entire range of life, such as what we have here, plus the things that are yet to be developed here but pretty much certain, such as AI and super AI. And given the known age of the universe and the star systems, that AI will have been developed not for fifty or one hundred years but millions or billions of years.

Cogito, ergo sum.

Possibly the biggest miraculous happening that happened to you, is that you can look inward, and say, "I am," or "I exist."

I think you hit the nail right on the head.

I can't force myself to believe in something. It is impossible. Either something truly miraculous has to happen to me or it doesn't. If it does, I change my whole worldview instantly. If it doesn't, talking for hours about it surely isn't going to help. I realize this about "religious debates", they are just for light chitchat. I enjoy talking about it myself, but I know it is just for fun, nothing serious.

How can words change anything? My worldview will always remain the same I start out with.

Mind-blowing experiences change worldview, not words.

This thread should have ended here. Not to mention the fact that you can't force yourself to believe  in something.

Are you or are you not lying about the "conversation you had with the friend and what he said." I would just like to know. No ducking and dodging please.

No offense but you and your friend aren't very smart if you both concluded that you won that argument based on what you've told us, though I would actually be surprised if this argument actually happened in the first place. The fact that you think there's only one of two possible outcomes -- and chose the most ridiculous one -- is incredibly naive. There's so many flaws to your logic that I could spend hours debunking it but I'll go with the most silliest: Have you ever thought that there might be a god that hates stupidity and that any people who follow any religion or believes in any gods will go straight to hell? Maybe he sends anyone who believes in heaven straight to hell or non-existence. Maybe god is actually satan and all do-gooders and religious people go to hell whist non-believers or satanists get to live forever.

You're basically saying we should believe in god just because. Should we believe in unicorns as well just in case there's a unicorn god? I personally can't fake a belief in something I know almost certainly doesn't exist -- or at least there's no evidence for -- and I'm sure god would be able to see past my fake belief if I even tried to cheat myself into heaven. Could -- or would -- you believe that the earth is flat if it would get you a place in heaven? You've better, because that's what the bible thinks -- or certainly alludes to, so just to be safe I'd like to see you make the case for flat earth -- and remember, believing the earth is round may get you sent to hell so it's best to believe in flat earth just in case.

I'm personally not going to be bullied into believing in a god just because of the threat of eternal damnation. If god want's to send me to hell for that then so be it and there's nothing that I can do to change that but I think if there was a god then getting into heaven wouldn't be as easy as merely just believing in him so I'm probably screwed either way. In the meantime I'll just stick to being a good person without living my life in fear that I'm going to be punished when I die, and that's why I usually find atheists are far more moral people than religious ones because when they do good it's not for any reward but because they think it's the right thing to do.

You are right, actually Alan Hajek's proposal sounds very logical and reasonable. I agree with this. Pascal's wager is forcing us into a false dichotomy.

I'm amazed anyone is convinced by Pascal's Wager; it's so binary. Hajek's objective is a rejection of this binary choice by introducing additional Gods into the story.

f you believe in God A, God B may damn you after death because God A is fictitious. God B may not punish a non-believer as hard as a false-worshiper.

This is the gamble of Pascal, French Mathematician. I will reply with a question: Is your believe come from your unknown afraid of after death? Is it believing or just saying?

It depends on which God you choose to believe in.

Do you enjoy killing gays or infidels? Stoning women for adultery?

If yes, then you might enjoy your life and believe in God (Yahweh, Allah, Jesus etc).

If you don't, then your God will punish you severely and you will burn in hell for not obeying what he told you must do or else.

Now, I would recommend you pick Sun as your God.  We know what Sun is, and it does not ask you to kill anyone.  Without Sun there would be no life here on Earth.

Dogs are also good Gods.  They love you no matter what, will put their lives on the line to save you, are always there, you can see and touch them, they are real.  Unlike the Gods people invented.

Science does not have room for personal truths, it only deals with absolute truth. Either something is true, or it is not. There is no false dichotomy.

By saying that there are personal truths rather than absolute truth, there would no possibility for someone to experience something that convinces them that their "personal truths" were false all along.

Always with those is there god or not debates I would like to ask like some people here before, how do you know that the God that you believe in i the true god? I mean, if we take Christianity for example, then sorry if I'm wrong, but I'm quite sure that following another religion with completely different traditions and beliefs is also considered as not being a true believer and not going to heaven? But what always amazes me that how can people be so ignorant to believe that among 7 billion people and who knows how many religions, they are the ones who are definitely 100% right. Why is it so hard to accept that some people believe in something else and some people believe in science and not a god like entity at all? Maybe whatever they believe in is right for them and as they don't believe in heaven or hell, these things won't ever exist for them. I would really like to think that whatever a person believes in that will be their reality. So there is not only one truth, but there are personal truths.

I mean, I definitely do believe in something, not in god, no. But that there is something much bigger than us. Do I believe in heaven or hell? No. Whether you're religious or not I think people still want to do good and not only because they have this possibility to go to heaven, but because in their nature they are not bad just because they don't have faith in such things.

Also, with all the heaven and hell topic, what actually makes me rather sad is the fact that if god is so god and non-judgemental and what not, how is it possible that he wants to separate families for the whole eternity? I mean, I had this schoolmate who turned religious at some point and he was seriously devastated because his parents were not religious meaning that they would never get to heaven. So, he would go to heaven, yet a lot of people he cares about would burn in hell? Sounds lovely. In my opinion, not a very nice thought to have for the rest of your life.

What kind of God would leave his existence so arbitrary in so much of the world for so much of history?  What kind of god would chose one people at one time in history for all of his communication and then disappear like a deadbeat dad.   Certainly not an all loving, all powerful god. 

If this is all there is to god, and he is real, then he is not what he claims to be.    If I am wrong, and he is what he claims to be, he will forgive me for using the brain he gave me to figure out that there is not enough evidence to believe in god. 

anything above 0 does count, that is basic math that i do not intend to argue about  . this is going no where. Mods  feel free to delete the topic  thanks

People win the powerball too, unfortunately you are more likely to win the powerball back to back to back or find 10 LTC blocks in a day with an old L3 than you are to solve the next BTC block with pencil and paper and 3rd grade math skills...

And no anything above 0 doesn't count, there is technically a non zero chance I will have an orgy with Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansen, Ivanka Trump, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Sofia Vergara and 2 pounds of blow while on a private yacht in the south of France.