Topic: The problem with atheism. - page 39. (Read 38470 times)

I don't think you actually understand the halting problem at all.

No, it's absurd because it creates the same logical paradox as solving the halting problem: suppose Bobby finds out about the prediction and, because he's contrarian and always does the opposite of what people tell him, he decides to not type the word "cat". Now your prediction is wrong. And if you try to take this into account by predicting that Bobby will do the opposite of what you originally predicted, Bobby will do the opposite of that prediction instead. Bobby's behaviour is entirely deterministic, but impossible to predict if the prediction could affect him in any way.

Isn't this the whole "meaning of life" question all over again?

If you inspect the question, it's semantically broken. A creator gives something a meaning, purpose, etc. If you don't acknowledge a creator of yours or don't acknowledge his ownership over you, making you his slave, the concepts of meaning and purpose do not apply. If you acknowledge both, then voilà, your meaning and purpose is what your religion commands.

The end. This type of discussion only proves that way too many people need to check their definitions and formalism.

You can do the same on "free will" (and "free"-a-lot-of-things) if someone spends the time to properly define them.

The halting problem doesn't imply free will or negate determinism.  The result of each Turing problem is deterministic, since each step of the problem is deterministic.
In other words, the solution of a Turing problem is *determined* by its algorithm, which will be executed like the proverbial clockwork to arrive at the same solution *given the same inputs*.  

Turing is not interested in "how do those inputs come about" for the scope of the halting problem.  We, otoh, given sufficient data & time, could conclusively show that "Bobby will type the word "cat," which will be *THE input for the given Turing problem -- none of the other inputs are possible*.  The above is absurd only in the sense that it requires exhaustive data & time.  That's clockwork determinism at Turing Machine level.  Clockwork determinism can be attacked, but not by the halting problem.

TL;DR:  Not knowing the result != result is not predetermined.

Edit:  double negative

Believing in God does not necessarily answer such questions. It just changes the questions.

I believe in God and have the faith that He exists, I see that as separate from religion. Faith is what you believe, religion is how you practice that faith. So your religion just happens to be the practice of not believing in a higher being. But there is not really anything you need to do to practice such a faith. It would be like someone going to a conference for people that do not believe in Santa Clause or buying books about how you live a life of not believing in Santa. If you are struggling with living a life of not believing in Santa and society is making your life difficult for not having such a belief then fine, maybe gathering information from others may help you in such a struggle. But it should not be that difficult.

Because we are all individuals we all get to determine our own self worth and what we want to do with this one chance we have at being alive on this world. You do not have to have meaning to it if you do not want. You do not have to survive, that is all your own choice but to not survive is a wasted opportunity.

Just because we're deterministic automata doesn't mean we don't have free will. Ever heard of the halting problem? It proves that it is impossible to program a Turing-complete computer to decide in all cases whether another Turing-complete computer, given a particular program and input, will run for a finite number of cycles and halt, or run forever in an infinite loop. In other words, it is impossible for a computer to predict the outcome of running a particular program with a particular input, short of actually running said program for itself. Since a brain is a deterministic Turing-complete computer, it is therefore impossible for a brain to predict in all cases its own response to a particular stimulus. Or more simply, you can't always know what you're going to do before you do it. Ergo, deterministic brains have free will. Q.E.D.

EDIT: Typo

Currently there's a debate among the scientific and philosophical folks, I believe no free will is winning, and I don't have to predict anything.

Think a little, none of the important things in your life you had anything to say about choosing them, you didn't choose the country in which you were born, you didn't choose your parents, your sex, the color of your skin, your sexual orientation, your intelligence, the person you fell in love with, your favorite color, your hobbies, that accident, that cancer, your favorite restaurant, the fact that you have/don't have singing skills... You get the point... This are the things that define your identity, yourself, not the movie you're gonna watch next on Netflix.

Do you still believe you have free will?

And free will, soul, god or gods are all different things that do not depend on each other, there can be a soul and no free will and no god, there can be a god and a soul and no free will, there can be lots of gods and no soul no free will, and so on...

Well if you insist there is a way to prove whether or not God exists.
You see if there is a God then that means that we have soul/free will and can choose right from wrong.
If God doesn't exist then that means that we're biological automatons and don't have free will.
In order to prove that we don't have free will you would need to predict the behavior of a group of people within a time span with 100% certainty.

There's nothing to accept in atheism like there's is nothing to accept in not believing in leprechauns.

Again, atheism is not an "ism", it is not an ideology, it is a position taken when faced with the god hypothesis.


That is the exact problem with all the gods/after lives claims, they are unfalsifiable, when we die, we die, nothing to find, nothing to report, no evidence to support otherwise...

Whatever guys. We'll all find out after we die.
If you guys are right, we'll all turn into worm food.
Otherwise our consciousness will reach a higher/lower realm or we'll be reincarnated or something.

Let me introduce you to a coolest atheist I know of:  http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmb8hO2ilV9vRa8cilis88A

 

   I've read a fair amount of Nietzsche and enjoyed it, and found it not in the least contrary to the possibility of transcendence- rather it is a refutation of the stale morality that ordered society in his time. There are volumes of contradictory interpretations of the sum of Nietzsche's work, and if you view his work as a whole, you will see that his opinions change many times throughout his writing career. He was a self-described seeker of truth, and his advice helped lead me to the truth.

   Nietzsche began not as a philosopher, but as a student of Greek and Roman history and literature. His admiration for these works are part of what inspired him to write "A Genealogy of Morals," which was a harsh critique of monotheism. I believe this was due to what he perceived as being a dark age of monotheism following the literary glories of ancient Greece and Rome, and seeing that the revival of Greek and Roman ideals lead to a rebirth of culture which was his main joy in an otherwise very bleak life. I am equally vehement in refuting the Judeo-Christian worldview because these belief systems, for most of those who follow them, have been corrupted from purity, in the case of Judaism by taking the authority of the Rabbis to be equal to that of the Revelation, and in the case of Christianity with equating a human with divine substance. Both of these arrangements lead to a loss of confidence in the doctrines of the religion that has resulted in the state of affairs today, where most Jews and Christians simply ignore Biblical prohibitions on the making of images and the charging of interest, which is effectively an expression of disbelief in the core tenants of the Revelation.

    Nietzsche's work is very useful for tearing through these lies in the search of the truth. His insistence that the work of art must be taken as separate from the artist is necessary to incorporate his thinking into one's way of life, because his own example is one that I think no one would readily emulate. That is not to detract in the least from the value of his contribution, but Nietzsche himself never claimed any of his works to be authoritative, and was certainly dynamic throughout his career and always ready to admit that he was wrong, although he himself was the only one who was able to refute his own work.

     You spoke from your general impression of Nietzsche, now I have spoken from mine. Nietzsche sought refuge from the oppression of Judeo-Christian society in the ideals of classical thought, and was ultimately destroyed by it, just as Greek and Roman civilizations were destroyed. The odd thing is that these ideals have now been revived and are being pursued with a blind eye turned to the example of history.

One less than before; all depends on what we think constitutes as a planet tomorrow, which I can't predict

Of course, in a thousand years, we'll look back at today and think, "Wow, what a bunch of idiots!"  But I don't believe there's anything wrong with acknowledging the accomplishments we've made from the last thousand years, so long as we understand there will never be an end to what we know.  The point was, if we stop and say, "Well, I don't know how this works or why, so I'll just say God did it", then we stagnate.  If we all did that from a thousand years ago until now, we would be in the same spot we were in a thousand years ago.


I'm trying to wrap my head around this; so nihilism, in the context of atheism, results from someone first questioning God, realizing their questioning was justified, and then making the decision to be entirely and coldly rational about everything, or selectively be rational about one thing, and then irrational about something else (like karma, or horoscopes)?

There is the road to perdition.  We ALWAYS know more than we used to, and you and I are ignorant mystical thinkers to those from tomorrow.  You are not smarter than someone from yesterday or tomorrow.

Tomorrow, there may be higher consciousness than that of man, but we will invent it.

Yesterday, there may have been higher consciousness than that of man, off somewhere far away.

As far as the matter of how much we know...

Now how many planets are in the solar system?

    Richard Dawkins, at least on youtube, sometimes seems like the pope of atheism. I only watched one video of him recently where a Muslim posed him the question of the conundrum of morality without any consciousness after death, which reminds me of your concern with atheism. Taken to its conclusion, consciousness ending with this life often leads to hedonism- simply trying to enjoy this life as much as possible since it's all we get. This hedonism does not end well, because sensory pleasure is transitory, and generally leads to seeking of bigger and better thrills. Think about the development of movies and how the frame switches keep getting faster and faster as the years go on. People want more entertainment. Same with heroin- fun at first, but then you need more and more and eventually it doesn't get you high any more but you have to keep taking it to avoid the withdrawal sickness.

      Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky's the Brothers Karamazov famously observed "If there is no god, then everything is lawful." Atheism inevitably leads to self interest, because atheism is not, in truth, the absence of a form of worship- it is worship of the self. All action is simply to the end of serving and gratifying the self, whether for the fulfillment of genetic programming or for aesthetic gratification, and in this case the self takes the place that the Creator takes in other belief systems.

    A false god can be a single self or a composite self, an abstract concept or constellation of concepts personified or not. Justice, democracy, freedom, or other ideals are examples, even nature, as distinct from culture would be such a false deity. These concepts are worshiped because an individual or collective identifies with them- we are freedom loving Americans, so we worship our collective ideal of freedom, we are communists so we worship the ideal of the working class, so on and so forth. So in short the gods of atheists are contained in their own identities. God in this sense is just something that is worship, and worship is a form of service. We worship communism because we believe that it will benefit us by fulfilling a longing for social justice, or we worship freedom, believing that by devoting our energy to this concept we will attain freedom from our fears of hunger, loneliness, or inability to attain desires.

    This inevitably leads to conflict both within the individual and between individuals because the concepts are manifold and the understanding thereof can shift. I may believe in both social justice and freedom, and then my psyche is losing precious energy debating within itself how to reconcile these two seemingly opposing concepts. Should I make forum posts talking about the virtues of a free market economy, or should I write about the plight of factory workers in Bangladesh? Or who is better, those who worship at the temple of Shiva, or those who go to the temple of Vishnu? Who is better, Thor, or Freya? This divides communities who get lost in debate, as well as individuals who then have to devote more and more processing power to distinguishing and weighing the advantages of different concepts/deities.

         Monotheism solves this problem with a transcendent and all encompassing Creator and Sustainer. God in this sense refers to the eternal, self-sustaining, self-existing reality that transcends space-time. This is the only possibility to serve all equally, and is also the optimum from the limited grasp of human reason pursuing self-interest, because:

1. The law of causality is clearly visible. There is no action but has an effect- there is no perfect vacuum.
2. Therefore, everything is interconnected.
3. Every action will eventually return in some form or forms upon the actor.
4. Actions intended to benefit the actor by devoting energy to a non-transcendent concept/deity are ultimately fruitless, because they prioritize one concept/deity above another thereby creating enmity between them. The more I support democrats, the more insulted republicans are going to feel for my lack of support, thereby leading to conflict and resistance among republicans to the goals I wished to achieve by supporting democrats. If I spend more time in the temple of Athena than the temple of Apollo, my friends in the temple of Apollo are going to feel resentment because I am neglecting the worship of the ideals that they love.
5. Therefore, any action meant to benefit a part of reality in order to benefit myself is in effect an insult or neglect to another part of reality, or the action that is positive towards part of reality is negative towards another part of reality, and this negativity will come back to me due to 2.
6. The larger a portion of reality I devote my energy to, the more benefit I will derive from it. If I support the ruling party in China as a Chinese citizen, I derive much more benefit than if I support a Tibetan resistance movement.
7. The optimum course of action is then to devote my energy to the biggest portion of reality possible. This is variously referred to as Supreme Being, God, Allah, the Creator, the Most High, according to regional variations. Any devotion of energy to any temporal concept will therefore be to my detriment because I will have lost time I could have spent devoting to the Most Beneficial. which encompasses the temporal and non-temporal.

    So even according to limited human reasoning, belief and worship of a concept that transcends the sum of all phenomena is the most beneficial in terms of pure self interest. If we examine the claim that religion is given to us by a transcendent Truth which is conscious, we can see that the conclusion that the worship of the greatest reality is the most beneficial course of action lends credibility to this claim. In short, a religion claiming to be from a the Most Kind, and Most Generous, could only be a religion that is most beneficial to those who practice it. Therefore:

   Any recommendation of worshiping the greatest portion of reality, which is not a portion but greater than the totality is optimally satisfactory to self-interest.
   Any recommendation to worship what is less than the Greatest is less beneficial and therefore not optimal for satisfying the requirements of self-interest.

   This is the criteria for distinguishing Truth from falsehood. According to this criteria worshiping or serving the following is falsehood:
-The moon, sun, or stars.
-Animals, birds, fish, insects, griffons, chimera, humans.
-Fire, water, metals, earth, stones, plants.
-Ideas, constructs, buildings, ideologies.

  The Truth is anything that enjoins the worship of That Which is Greater than all of the above combined.


  As the moral fabric of materialist societies continues to disintegrate, so will social cohesion and the chances of survival of members of those societies. The stronger the belief in the truth of the transcendent Truth, the more actions will be devoted toward the Most Beneficial, and the more benefit will be derived.

And the punchline:

   The fact, as established above, that reality is ordered to the benefit of those who believe in the transcendent Truth, is proof of the existence of this Truth as the source of all phenomena.

  Sorry for going on so long, I understand if anyone skips over this and thank you to anyone who read the whole post. In short, I agree with this problem with atheism, but luckily Camus said in a Summer in Algiers "Nihilism contains the means to move beyond nihilism." Ultimately total selfishness leads to total selflessness, since service to all is of the greatest benefit to the individual. The elegance of this arrangement is sufficient proof. May we be blessed with belief in and understanding of this Truth if we want.

Thank you for that.

I was speaking in absolute terms, usually when it comes to god, beyond reasonable doubt is not enough for believers, but you touch this point also in "There might be; nothing is impossible.", but this position is a slippery slope to all kind of beliefs, and very easily disputed.


Sorry, common sense cannot be applied to quantum physics, and, actually, stuff comes out of nothing all the time at the quantum level.

Though you are right--there is the "yet" factor, where we may prove his existence in the future--at this moment, because we have been unable to provide evidence of him to this date, he is, as of right now, non-existent.

The universe itself violates common sense; if we believe the universe has a beginning, we must believe the universe has an end.  If the universe had a beginning, what became before the universe?  What will come after the universe?  Does time stop?  Does it begin?  And if we're assuming the universe was born from a conscious being, does he live in an alternate universe?  Does it have a form?  Is it merely energy, without form or conscious, which we call God?

My point is, since we cannot know, we shouldn't automatically assume it must be God; cultures from the dawn of time, having failed to explain the various happenings around them, instead assigned them to higher beings.  Before the single God, most cultures had multiple gods, each of which was in charge of different things, such as the rain gods and the love gods and the god of wine and the god of war etc.  Religion, when viewed in this light, was the original science; it was a way to explain the inexplicable.  Who could blame them?--they did not have any foundation to understand why the sun rose and fell, why the sky had clouds and why they sometimes struck with violent flash and thunder.  It was all mystical, majestic, magical; without any prior knowledge to the scientific method (which did not come about until loooong after most modern religions were created), your only choice was to believe there was some higher power making these things happen.

But now we know more than we used to, and we know what causes the floods, what lightning is and what it can do, what causes tornadoes and volcanoes and earthquakes.  Still, to this day, when faced with what we do not or cannot know, we assign it to God; my belief is, if we do not know, we shouldn't be so quick to assume it's the work of God, but instead seek the answer to the questions we have.  We cannot answer a mystery with a mystery; we cannot say it's the work of God if we cannot explain the work of God, for that does not answer our initial question.

you can't physically prove God exist-yet.
But common sense tells us that something can't come out of nothing.
and so every culture ever has come up with the concept of God independent of each other.

Actually, in the scientific method, the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence.

To drive this point home, there is no evidence of a nation named Hooloocooloogooloo.  We might argue that, since there is no evidence of this nation existing, that doesn't necessarily mean a nation named that doesn't exist.  However, because we are aware of all the nations in the world, and know there aren't any other continents to be found on the planet, then the absence of evidence of the nation named Hooloocooloogooloo is the evidence of absence.

There might be; nothing is impossible.  But it's so highly unlikely, to say it doesn't exist is as close as you'll ever get to the truth; there may be no certainty, but it's beyond reasonable doubt.

Likewise, all evidence of God has proven either from shaky sources or religious testimony, but there is no hard evidence of Him.  He exists only in stories, whether in books or told by peers.  So, without any indication of there being a God, we can only assume He isn't there.  It's entirely possible He is, but as rational beings, we know better than to say there exists such a being without the ability to present hard evidence.  Nothing has ever not existed so much as God and the spaghetti monster; they're essentially the end-roads to something not existing: no evidence whatsoever.