Topic: Why I'm an atheist - page 89. (Read 89032 times)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

Almost the only reason why anyone is an atheist is, he wants to be. Proof for God is all around us in nature, and is available in science, and is even available in the ways that atheists suggest that there is no God.

There might be slight chance that there is an honest atheist who isn't knowledgeable enough about science or nature to understand that God exists. But the knowledgeable people who suggest that they are atheists, do so simply because they think that they would like to be atheistic, at the same time that they know that atheism is completely incorrect.

Definitely sounds like BADlogic

You can't compare a junkie's hallucinations with scientific experimentation. The patient from the AWARE study had a true perception of a sound during a flat EEG (indicating an absence of brain activity), so his experience (a so-called "death experience") cannot be dismissed as hallucinations.

Sorry to tell you, but everything seems to force [you] to conclude that you were awareness (you did exist as an aware person, so you were like human before you were conceived) for an eternity and are going to be awareness again (you are going to be alive again) for another eternity.

Furthermore, where is the evidence that the memories are being generated either after or before the fact? Thonnard's results evidence the validity of NDE memories, whereas the "God Helmet" or "flying junkie" does nothing but entertain skeptics. The OP simply cannot bear to stand these experimental results.


You (OP) were ignorant about this phenomena so you were not able to propose a valid explanation, instead you proposed a false one even after I told you about AWARE. The AWARE study results have scientifically validated everything that Hammeroff says in his Open Letter to Dawkins and Shermer and the four scientific observations about awareness that he makes there; there is no way that an atheist skeptic like the OP can explain survival of consciousness after brain death with his current thinking; how can OP still say that no anomalous perception has ever been proven to the satisfaction of reasonable science when veridical perception during brain death was validated in AWARE? OP has stopped quoting this post of mine in his replies to his thread. I gave him AWARE and the four points made by Hammeroff but OP has not yet rationally evaluated this evidence. A skeptic said of the AWARE results:

I was impressed that they did in fact has a patient who was timed for 3 minutes [while] his heart stopped. His brain functioning ceased within 20-30 seconds of the heart stop beating. This shows that these experiences are not hallucinations but are in fact real experiences with an afterlife. I am also glad that the scientific community is finally starting to take this phenomenon seriously with more research being done in the future.

At least if OP cannot agree about the "scientific proof", he should be able to reply that these results are very interesting and that there is no reason to be prejudiced against the possibility of veridical perception. Why did you stop quoting me in our discussion, OP? Let's try to address each other's points instead of trying to address "everyone".

I knew a junkie that said he flied every night on a horse through the skies.

One of the biggest surprises of his life was when he saw a horse at a time he wasn't high: it had no wings! This seems to be enough evidence that he was sincerely convinced that he indeed flied on a horse every night and was telling the truth.

Therefore, under the burden of evidence used by some of the believers that post on this thread, it seems that it's scientifically proven that flying horses do exist.

(sarcasm)

You mean flying horses are not real?

People in ancient times think lightning came from the Gods and that lightning is their punishment for not worshipping and/or following their Gods enough. People also thought that fire came from the Gods because they can't explain how fire is created. Basically, everything that they cannot explain redirects to 'it came from the Gods'. Now, with that in mind and knowing that most of the 'sacred' books are written way way long ago, then how do we know that those that're written in the 'sacred' book are just another happenings that they can not explain yet in their time. Look, we can now explain lightning, fire, and etc. But why are people still reading the same book that their ancestors written?

Do you also believe Muhammad flew around on a flying horse?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buraq



Come on man... flying horses are not real

Flying horses are make-believe fairy tales, just like the rest of the qur'an, just like the bible, just like the bhagavad gita

All religions are ridiculous, and none of it actually happened


PS. Thanks for reminding me its nearly time for the annual "draw mohammed day"
https://www.facebook.com/events/1491745381115822/

"perfect" I meant is you have mind, perfect system inside your body. even if you have weaknesses, every man have because we're not God and we are created, you have something special inside you. the thing is you know it or you still don't know.

abouth the earth, God has created the good thing and bad thing. if everything is good, then how are you tested? He's testing all of us. are we pattient with the bad things or we blame him. if we do the right things, we will be given better things.

all of the rules are in Qur'an. if you want to know how perfect God's creation, read it. you can read the translation.

On the perfectness as evidence, I know my sentence on having been nothing for an eternity and be condemned to be nothing again for another eternity is scary, it forces people to try to find a way out of what seems a terrible fate.

Who likes to realize that we were born as criminals condemned to spent our life on a death row (just with a very big jail cell) and to end it like executed innocent inmates...

But I can't change it and write that there will be a special heaven just for atheists.

Let me quote again Unamuno, Tragic Sense Of Life, 1913, III - The Hunger of Immortality: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14636

 "I am presented with arguments (...) demonstrating the absurdity of the belief in the immortality of the soul; but these arguments fail to make any impression upon me, for they are reasons and nothing more than reasons, and it is not with reasons that the heart is appeased. I do not want to die--no; I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever. I want this "I" to live--this poor "I" that I am and that I feel myself to be here and now (...).

(...) and if I grapple myself to God with all my powers and all my senses, it is that He may carry me in His arms beyond death (...) Self-illusion? Talk not to me of illusion--let me live!

And you, who are you? you ask me (...) "For the universe, nothing; for myself, everything!" Pride? Is it pride to want
to be immortal? Unhappy men that we are! 'Tis a tragic fate, without a doubt, to have to base the affirmation of immortality upon the insecure
and slippery foundation of the desire for immortality (...). I am dreaming ...? Let me dream, if this dream is my life. Do not awaken me
from it."

Only Baudelaire, the dark poet, wrote about this issue in even more dramatic terms than Unamuno.

But Unamuno makes very clear that it's the fear of being nothing that throws people into religion, hoping, dreaming of something impossible.

Unamuno, who loved life so much, died in 1936, in the middle of the Spanish civil war. He was a Professor and Rector of the University of Salamanca.

Actually I dont...

I'm colorblind as are 8% of men... that isn't perfect

The fact that we eat and breathe using the same hole in our face, ensures that a certain percentage of the population will die by choking to death... that isn't perfect design

What about Leukemia?  What about Down's Syndrome?  Is that part of gods perfect plan?

Did god also create the myriad of diseases on our planet?

Did god create the parasite that burrows into a child's eyeball and eats his eye from the inside?  That's absolutely horrible

The Earth is perfect?  WTF have you been smoking?

The Earth is survival of the fittest... dog eat dog... kill or be killed... that's not very pleasant for anyone

The Earth has earthquakes, volcanoes, lightning, hurricanes, famine, hunger, disease, pestilence, etc

You suffer from one hell of a confirmation bias

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

everything is going to be nothing? do you think we just exist? and its natural? oh come on mate, you're kidding. how could you say that? don't you see how perfect the work of our body? how perfect the earth is. if you ever studied science, you will know that earth, proton, electron and other universal things rotate to the left. there's should be the greatest power who handles them.

if you still don't believe, let me ask you. who did create you? do you create yourself or someone else create you? if you think your parents create you, then ask them, could you choose to make daughter or son? absolutely they can't, ever.

Speak for yourself, brother! You are saying totally nonsensical and backwards things right here in the OP! You say that by observing the physical world, we can conclude that awareness comes from nothingness, but you did not do any actual observation because if you did you would realize that everything to be observed in the universe implies consciousness.


Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-hameroff/more-rational-than-thou-a_b_7515498.html

The standard dogma is that consciousness emerges from complex computation among brain neurons and synapses acting like ‘bits’ and switches; I will AGAIN point you to four reasons given by Hammeroff for doubting the standard dogma; the implication is that the brain is acting more like a receiver of consciousness than a generator of counsciousness; why have you not yet addressed these four empirical points:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stuart-hameroff/darwin-versus-deepak-whic_b_7481048.html

Yes, others will read us. There is hope some will be more reasonable.

I'm used to read people writing about spirits like if they were talking about their next door neighbor or a close family member.

But when they start telling me that they are Napoleon, or that Napoleon is still walking around, the debate starts looking like a train wreck.

However, when they add "By the way, did I told you that there is also an alien conspiracy going on?", it's time to jump from the train to save my sanity or, at least, my "savoir faire".

I wonder if, at least sometimes, they stop and realize "Damn, I believe on some unorthodox* stuff".

* Political correct word for "crazy".

Well, they probably will add immediately to themselves: "But it's all scientifically proven".

To any believer taking my words the negative way, sorry, but you can't post these things and expect to be taken seriously.

If the fact is in fact a theory, then it is not known to be a fact.

I am not trying to deny you the right to have fun.

You are amazing at projecting yourself onto others... its uncanny

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

The reason you bother is that you don't have any real reasoning for the things that you think, and you are trying to find someone who will tell you the reason why you reject the truth.

Incorrect.

The world and everything in it has meaning and reason, and in particular a good and indubitable meaning. It follows immediately that our worldly existence, since it has in itself at most a very dubious meaning, can only be means to the end of another existence. The idea that everything in the world has a meaning [reason] is an exact analogue of the principle that everything has a cause, on which rests all of science.

Why would the material world "seem to force" a conclusion upon our minds when mind is far superior to matter? My internal reality is not an anecdote, it is valid. Our total reality and total existence are beautiful and meaningful . . . . We should judge reality by the little which we truly know of it. We have concluded that the awareness is the finest and greatest item in this world based on the practical analysis here itself. If the practical experience is neglected, the logic will lose its basis.
I cited Hammeroff and the AWARE study to prove that mind is superior to matter. Now I will also quote Gödel and Chopra for their very helpful comments on this difficult discussion:

- See more at: http://www.chopra.com/ccl/what-is-cosmic-consciousness#sthash.qAGM6TT1.dpuf

Now all of this is according to the "philosophical viewpoint" of the most brilliant mathematician of the 20th century:
I now present more fascinating and salient quotes from this mathematical genius:


Source: http://kevincarmody.com/math/goedel.html

Why would awareness come from nothing and return to nothingness?
Would it not make more sense to say that awareness comes from a sort of non-awareness and returns to non-awareness in a cycle?
What is so difficult about accepting the possibility of another existence under conditions of material non-being? And the endlessness of these cycles?

What is so funny about all of this talk of "scientific proof" is that skeptics apply different standards of proof for parapsychological research and mainstream science. I strongly advise anyone to browse the spiritual development site to discover the facts behind skeptical misdirection, eminent researchers, etc.

I too wish that others will understand the debate, so I am putting forward the facts. One final fact I want to mention: For any authority, the final stage is experience, which alone gives the validity. So how can OP claim that we should conclude that death is real when no authority has ever experienced it? Does OP purport to be the authority on death?? I assume not. So why not choose cycles as the explanation, especially since it is far simpler than creation ex nihilo? Even if you were to conclude (somehow) that something (awareness) arose from nothing, how would you know for sure that this is the case? Maybe if you think that your permanent home is "nothingness" then your awareness will search out for that home upon your having a "death experience". Matter does not force upon us a belief and neither does science have much to say about death; we know for sure that it is a miracle to be alive if indeed the true home of our minds is annihilation (i.e. non-existence or nothingness). Gödel agrees that simple mechanism cannot yield the mind, and that the mind did not arise in the Darwinian manner. That home which gave birth to OP's mind "out of nowhere" is described by OP as both "pre-existing" (quantum fields) and "nothingness" (an absence of any thing), but it cannot be both! If it were, then our existence would be scientific proof of a miracle.

Sometimes I don't know why I bother...

I like to tell myself that someone reading it understands the conversation, even when the person I am debating clearly doesn't have a clue