Atheist, are you one??

[Wendigo]

I bet somewhere the artist formerly known as God is having a good chuckle to itself

[astronight]

A quote from a movie....
Bethany: Sex is a joke in heaven?

Metatron: The way I understand it, it's mostly a joke down here, too.
Well if all laughing causally at that then the adult humor is those of us masturbating to,...Just myself as a example. I can not call my favorite model a perfect Goddess/Aphrodite without believing, gotta get some laughs in heaven for that. I might be her punishment for her erotic exposure sins, then again I might have to answer to her for lusting her...Some how I think I her and I could win either way, she will get my worship. Then again I might have to clip her toenails for eternity, not so bad.
I like to think there is something to put comparison to.

[zeddcontra]

My theology or lack thereof has evolved a lot through my life. My degrees are in philosophy and theology and I'm a former minister. At very least, I've lng held that all "revealed" or traditional narrative God-language is myth and metaphor, and don't consider faith to be a virtue. I'll still identify as a Christian, my cultural and family roots being important to me, but speak in terms of "faith heritage" rather than "faith."

I guess I'm kind of a schizotheist--if Thomas Aquinas and Richard Dawkins had a baby, it would probably be me. From what was once a robust faith in all the fairy tale stuff, what keeps me from identifying as atheist is pretty much just that the concept of primary causality still has a grip on me. I once thought that was totally compelling; its now downgraded to simply credible. I'm still trying to wrap my mind on the idea of cause and effect themselves being emergent properties, as maintained by Sean Carroll, but I'm not quite there yet. That would be a game changer if I were.

[howerd]

Originally Posted by zeddcontra

My theology or lack thereof has evolved a lot through my life. My degrees are in philosophy and theology and I'm a former minister.

Wow! I'm impressed!

Originally Posted by zeddcontra

At very least, I've lng held that all "revealed" or traditional narrative God-language is myth and metaphor, and don't consider faith to be a virtue.

Faith is the excuse people use for believing something when they have no good reasons for doing so! (Incidentally did you mean to say 'lng' here ^)

Originally Posted by zeddcontra

I'll still identify as a Christian, my cultural and family roots being important to me, but speak in terms of "faith heritage" rather than "faith."

Then that makes you a cultural Christian & even Richard Dawkins identifies as that!

Originally Posted by zeddcontra

I guess I'm kind of a schizotheist--if Thomas Aquinas and Richard Dawkins had a baby, it would probably be me.

A guy with two fathers! Mind you, even Jesus had two fathers!

Originally Posted by zeddcontra

From what was once a robust faith in all the fairy tale stuff, what keeps me from identifying as atheist is pretty much just that the concept of primary causality still has a grip on me.

Contrary to popular belief, what identifies someone as an atheist is whether they can say 'I do' when they're asked if they believe god claims are justified (even if all they can say is 'I don't know' which is dodging the question because they weren't asked if they knew, they were asked whether they believed). I avoid calling myself an atheist simply because most people don't know what an atheist is however I won't deny that I am an unbeliever & that's an atheist really is. You needn't say that you know there's no god. Heck for all I know there might be stacks of 'em but I don't happen to believe that there are any, that's all.

Originally Posted by zeddcontra

I once thought that was totally compelling; its now downgraded to simply credible.

Can you say why it's genuinely 'credible'? I've never heard a remotely credible argument for a god. The best I've ever heard is 'Well there might be one because... errr... there just might be!' but you could say that about The Loch Ness Monster or anything else unproven couldn't you?

Originally Posted by zeddcontra

I'm still trying to wrap my mind on the idea of cause and effect themselves being emergent properties, as maintained by Sean Carroll, but I'm not quite there yet. That would be a game changer if I were.

I like Carl Sagan's quote about the 'cosmos' differentiating it from the 'universe'. "The cosmos is all there is, was or will ever be." In other words he's saying that it's absolutely Everything with a capital E. If there's a multiverse (as Sean Carroll thinks) it's part of the cosmos but so is anything that actually exists whether it's known or unknown but seeing as the cosmos is everything how could anything (or anyone) be a 'cosmos creator' when 'Everything' has no outside? It can't & if there is a multiverse it's can't be supernatural. In fact no one can even say what the 'supernatural' is, only what it isn't. That is not an insignificant problem when invoking a god is it?

[CARLTON BROWN]

Originally Posted by vannax

We have not observed evolution, biogenesis, or the inflaton field particle quantum, but we still know they exist, just like we knew the Higg's field particle quantum existed.

General Relativity + Quantum mechanics + Experimentally proven fact that the universe has a positive cosmological constant + Experimentally proven fact that far-from-equilibrium systems give rise to increasingly complex dissipative structures all adds up to God(s) or Boltzmann brains, and statistically, God(s) is far more likely.

The truth is that I can't really be bothered to get into debates about God, the Universe, entropy, heat death, the multiverse or things of that nature. People have entrenched opinions and their thinking tends to be absolutely rigid. I'm actually quite happy to be someone who makes no claim to have any understanding of the bigger picture. I don't lie in bed at night worrying about any of this, as it makes no difference to my life in any way. Nevertheless, IMHO, religion is man-made mind control and largely illogical. It was introduced at times when most of the world's population comprised of illiterate peasants and scientific knowledge was slight. To me, it has been the biggest con in history.

That said, much of what is around us, may always remain beyond the human mind's ability to comprehend. Maybe very advanced future artifical intelligence will have some understanding of what the Universe actually is?

However, I've just added this passing comment as I was impressed to see someone mention Boltzmann who will take your thinking to another level. Far out stuff indeed :-) Anyone for Block Universe theory?

[hoss]

OK, so if god exists - who made him?

[cicciobuki]

Originally Posted by hoss

OK, so if god exists - who made him?

Well, we did.




(not me personally but humankind)


Edit: the answer was also in the post above yours

Originally Posted by CARLTON BROWN

religion is man-made mind control

[Brecht]

[les1917lie]

Did you hear about the dyslexic aitheist who didn't believe in dog...?

[Adam West]

There's gotta be something out there, be it God, Buddah, Allah, Odin, Zeus, Zod, a teapot, Mr. Spock, Dr. Who...

I'm a skeptic, but only in what all did or did not happen in The Bible. I'm not a skeptic in a higher authority. Or lower authority (Satan, the Devil, Hades, Pluto, Bluto, et al.).