A happy Atheist

[wolfen44]

I don't believe in god so what I used to until hey I realized I'm just here no more no less. Plus the fact that if I did believe in "god" I would most knowingly be a Satanist or just be a sadistic nut job... wait I'm already a nut job HAHA. I'm loosing it, gone a little psycho right now and I like it, whats this world coming to when they let some body like me into it and let me live HA just goes to show that this world gets worse god I cant wait till the next world war cause I'm sittin' at home and Picking off anybody that even comes on my property. WELCOME TO THE WORLD EVERYBODY, and if I direct your attention to the left here's the firing line ready to mow you down.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Chill out, man.

There's a lot of us who don't buy into the old way of thinking. 'God' is a loose term, first of all. The notion of an anthropomorphic Deity thinking in human terms and taking on human sensibilities is as stupid as it is laughable. As are talking snakes, virgin mothers, and space gods who destroy cities because people are being people.

The notion of an Anti-God, or 'Satan' and 'Hell' is even more absurd.

You sound mostly like a coward, anyway. Fucking man up and deal with it, dude.

Didn't your momma raise you better? Man up. You got a family that needs you and you got a responsibility to YOURSELF.

Keep up the free thinking. I like it. Cut out the stupidity. You aint mowing down shit but the fucking lawn when your momma tells you to.

[wolfen44]

The notion of an Anti-God, or 'Satan' and 'Hell' is even more absurd.

You sound mostly like a coward, anyway. Fucking man up and deal with it, dude.

Didn't your momma raise you better? Man up. You got a family that needs you and you got a responsibility to YOURSELF.

Keep up the free thinking. I like it. Cut out the stupidity. You aint mowing down shit but the fucking lawn when your momma tells you to.

Its better to be a brave coward than a shell shocked soldier, keeps you alive for just that longer bit of time.

Plus what to say that if you had some one chasing you with a gun that you wouldn't run your yellow fuzzy ass away from him.

Also how old do you think I am???

[ChubbyTeletubby]

Its better to be a brave coward than a shell shocked soldier, keeps you alive for just that longer bit of time.

That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and is quite possibly the stupidest one liner I've read in about...oh...three years.

Plus what to say that if you had some one chasing you with a gun that you wouldn't run your yellow fuzzy ass away from him.

Huh? What? Are you fucking retarded or just stoned?

How old do I think you are?

Honestly, I thought you must be around 11-15 years of age. Not just from the immature TONE of your posts, but also because you can't seem to concisely get a point across using simple English.

If you ARE retarded, then WOW. I'm impressed. You're the stupidest retard I've ever met, and THAT'S saying something. Most retards I come across are thoughtful, engaging sorts. They also seem to be good at sports and attract WAY more ladies.

If you are older than 20 and living on your own.....

First of all...holy shit.

Fucking God Christ are you kidding me? You sound like a fucking 12 year old, dude. But um...

All that being said.

You might have a pretty good crystal meth hook and/or might be willing to suck my dick for crack. I could use one of either right now. Hit me up with a pm. We'll talk.

Peace.

EDIT: I'm just...um. Kidding. Sorry. But really though if you DO have a good meth hook up or WILL accept crack for Bjs go ahead and pm me.

And really though tone down the 'I'm full of angst' rhetoric. It's the internet. It's 2009. Nobody cares.

Also I am giving away dime bags of coke and weed for hand jobs. PM me for details.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Holy fuck.

I think I just remembered what IS used to be like.

[wolfen44]

Holy fuck.

I think I just remembered what IS used to be like.

Ah the good old days they still crack me up HAHAHA I've been around for a lot longer than you guys think, also you were not too far off chubby when you said 11-15 I hit 18 two and a half months... Just to mention also I dont do drugs(although no one offers me any) but I am a diagnosed Bipolar schizophrenic with a pyro addiction, and or I'm fucked up HAHA I still enjoy it though cause everybody that I know is afraid of me

Just remember I'm here I'm there...check your back yard lately

[apotheosis]

In my early teens I defined myself by my atheism and anti-religious sentiment. I think some of my earlier works on the site reflect this to some extent, especially The Great Conflict.

Since then I realized that being so adamant and fanatical in my anti-religious beliefs is almost as bad as being a devout theist. Trust me, I'm still not by any means a fan of religion, and realize it is the root cause of a lot of societal ills. My ideological outlook though has evolved, and I'm more pro-science than anti-religion. I would like to see and do my best to promote rational thought and strive for objectivity (yes I realize true objectivity is not possible, but it is a limit we may approach). I also realize that God is just part of the problem, and after really thinking through my belief structure and the implications of it, I realized that I don't believe in any sort of transcendent property of human beings, or anything in the universe for that matter.

The good news is, at least in the US, religion is on the decline, especially in young people. This is a sign that naturally people are moving a bit closer to rational thought. I think our "salvation" really lies in the responsible and pragmatic use of science and technology.

Rant ended.

[wolfen44]

Since the beginning of time. At the beginning of time was there a person that formed our great universe, and did that person have good intensions for us to be here or was there something else more conniving and evil, could we have been made from hell or heaven how would we be able to know, why don’t we know, what keeps us from the truth, and who keeps us from the truth.I’ve got a good question for all religious people is that you sing songs and praise lords that nobody in this entire world can prove that they exist. People only worship I find because it gives them hope to move forward in life, and I hope I am not copying from Iron Maiden but “ I ain’t religious but I ain’t no fool”. As you might know by now by reading this that I enjoy things that make you think about the grand scheme of things. I only think that way because I feel that there is some importance with viewing in such a way instead of every minute detail that there is some importance with viewing the world in such a way that it might prove beneficial to the longevity of the human race or the world or something. Everybody and I mean everybody thinks on small scale constantly even me set everything down from minute to minute hour to hour just to know that you wont hit an error within your own schedule that would set you off pace. The problem is that you don’t plan for unexpected incidents that would impede your minute to minute setting.

Random rant over

[Ryan_DuBois]

Science and logic trouble me too, though. I mean, they obviously help most of us live more convenient lives, and someday they might even help us reach other galaxies (hence, allowing us obtain unlimited resources and space) and reach eternal life.

Possibly.

Maybe.

Still, it leaves a hole in my heart. It bothers me that we have to base almost everything off of assumtions before deducing (how do we know, for instance, that something must be either true or not true? Our brains were, after all, shaped for survival purposes... not reason). Sure, we can get evidence that coincides with axioms and postulates, but they're mostly still unprovable. We aren't sure of hardly anything, we just assume.

On top of that, we've got a bunch of crap like Russel's Paradox to contend with. It's crazy. We know nothing.

Except, maybe, that we exist.

And maybe that truth and falsity exist.

And maybe a couple other unsatisfying absolute truths.

That's about it.

[wolfen44]

Still, it leaves a hole in my heart. It bothers me that we have to base almost everything off of assumptions before deducing (how do we know, for instance, that something must be either true or not true?

Thats all that we have ever done we assume and reason, its just like when we discovered the atom we cant see it but we know its there we just assume what it looks like. We have to see it, hear it, smell it, or touch it to actually know that it exists. Whats truth is truth and it is just to find what is truth is the challenge

[Usoki]

Why does humanity believe in something it can't see, hear, taste, smell, or touch?

Because carbon monoxide poisoning kills people.

[Hi! My name is: Katie]

Usoki, that is the most convincing case for God I have ever heard. It really makes the wheels in my little brain squeak.

[Ryan_DuBois]

Why does humanity believe in something it can't see, hear, taste, smell, or touch?

Because carbon monoxide poisoning kills people.

Lol. Excellent answer to a much-pondered question, Usoki.

Now, for an even better question:

What does humanity believe in something it can see, hear, taste, smell, and touch?

There's probably "things" out there, but I doubt that we know even close to everything about them. Senses are just things we evolved in order to help us replicate; they don't necessarily give us an "actual" window to reality. In fact, self-deception can often be favored by natural selection. Fucking favored.

We're just pawns who live in a Matrix created by the genes and memes.



Seriously.

And we have no free will.

Well... maybe.

Hopefully.

But probably not.

[xnull]

(how do we know, for instance, that something must be either true or not true? Our brains were, after all, shaped for survival purposes... not reason)

Well, this is an obvious slip up. Everything being either true or not true isn't the basis of logic.

The basis of logic is that something cannot both fully have and fully lack a quality at the same time. Something cannot "be completely red" and "be not in the least red" in one given instant, but it could change between the two over time. To give another example, something can not be "sort of bumpy" and "not sort of bumpy" at the same time.

This isn't something that we can really know for certain - it's something that we've set this up formally to describe the way that the human mind can think about its universe. And since all of our experiences are consistent with this way of thinking, its seems to be a valuable way of thinking.

Based on the assumption that something cannot both fully lack and fully have a quality at any given time, we build the rest of logic, deductively, using that law as a basis and spreading out. We use it as a tool. Therefore if you would believe the idea that something cannot both have and lack a property, you should believe anything deduced from it.

(Sometimes deduction isn't enough, since we realize that we can't really even trust our senses. We rely on inference, or probable knowledge given probability and expected truth, to lend us good reason to believe things. The more an inference proves to be true, the more that we trust it to make deductions off of.)

However, it's possible that perhaps that everything except for Decarte's "I am" is the matrix, or some extraordinary experience.

So all of this is built to describe what is useful for getting knowledge based on the human condition.

But, drawing from our experience, does "The Matrix" seem likely? Do any of the other explanations seem likely?

Perhaps a more pragmatic question to ask is ff the universe is emulated in another universe's supercomputer, does seeking knowledge about the universe we inhabit become less useful, less beautiful or elegant, or less meaningful?

Time ran out posting....

[wolfen44]

Well, this is an obvious slip up. Everything being either true or not true isn't the basis of logic.

The basis of logic is that something cannot both fully have and fully lack a quality at the same time. Something cannot "be completely red" and "be not in the least red" in one given instant, but it could change between the two over time. To give another example, something can not be "sort of bumpy" and "not sort of bumpy" at the same time.

This isn't something that we can really know for certain - it's something that we've set this up formally to describe the way that the human mind can think about its universe. And since all of our experiences are consistent with this way of thinking, its seems to be a valuable way of thinking.

Based on the assumption that something cannot both fully lack and fully have a quality at any given time, we build the rest of logic, deductively, using that law as a basis and spreading out. We use it as a tool. Therefore if you would believe the idea that something cannot both have and lack a property, you should believe anything deduced from it.

(Sometimes deduction isn't enough, since we realize that we can't really even trust our senses. We rely on inference, or probable knowledge given probability and expected truth, to lend us good reason to believe things. The more an inference proves to be true, the more that we trust it to make deductions off of.)

However, it's possible that perhaps that everything except for Decarte's "I am" is the matrix, or some extraordinary experience.

So all of this is built to describe what is useful for getting knowledge based on the human condition.

But, drawing from our experience, does "The Matrix" seem likely? Do any of the other explanations seem likely?

Perhaps a more pragmatic question to ask is ff the universe is emulated in another universe's supercomputer, does seeking knowledge about the universe we inhabit become less useful, less beautiful or elegant, or less meaningful?

Time ran out posting....

Wow this is worth a cookie
http://infinitejestchallenge.files.w...hip_cookie.jpg