A hypothetical question, especially for the atheists and skeptics in the audience...
- Thread starter Schadrach
- Start date
But... but I have no fear of copyright infringement!ccggenius12 said:
After all, this is the internet we're on, where everyone is above the law! Right? Anybody else? No? Just me?
[sub][sub]Also, I don't watch enough Simpsons. There's a lot of episodes and I was only actually following it for a few years. D:[/sub][/sub]
Eh, I was being facetious and taking advantage of what was probably just a spelling error. It's always fun taking advantage of people's lack of proof reading, when their errors generate other things that you can reference. Drop "alot" into google images if you want a more prolific example of the kinds of things I do when I feel my Grammar Nazi side taking over.shrekfan246 said:
Scepticism is based around evidence that has objective meaning and can be verified. Specifically it is the desire to find objective meaning and rejection of conjecture and subjective claims, even if 100% understanding is unobtainable. The only tried and true method of finding and proving objectively verifiable evidences is Science. Science is purely a study of the physical.lacktheknack said:
Now some would say this is the flaw of science; it can only explore and understand the natural reality around us. But the problem here is assuming that there is in fact a supernatural world that we cannot observe physically. The facts are as science continues its march of discovery, the number of Supernatural events continues to diminish, as what was once magical and mysterious now become physically understood, or utterly debunked, therefore making it a natural event or a piece of fiction.
Science is constantly illuminating and dispersing the fog of mysticism in our collective knowledge. This is the idea behind the "God of the Gaps" analogy. The more we learn about our universe, the fewer spaces in which our ghosts, magics and deities are capable of existing in. Even if people who believe in the supernatural accept what science says as fact, they will continue to squeeze their Mysticisms into smaller and smaller gaps in our collective knowledge.
You can be sceptical of supernatural events. First off, as mentioned above, many of histories "recorded" superstitions have found perfectly adequate, natural explanations with more myths failing to stand up to scrutiny and being debunked. What's more, many modern Superstitions and mysticisms are highly subjective and diversified. Where science finds 1 solid answer for a specific question, though it may start with many, mystics and the superstitious will have a hundred answers for the same question and that number will only increase over time.
You can't be sceptical of well established Scientific theories like Gravity, Atoms and Evolutions as it would only make you look like a fool who deliberately deprives their senses. Not only do we have concrete studies that stand as proof, we have also APPLIED sciences that have given us so much of our modern technology, methodologies, medicines and comforts that simply make those theories irrefutable at the most basic level (they are not wrong, but they may not be perfectly understood either).
Science being the humble juggernaut it is, will never claim 100% knowledge, only high percentages of certainty. But we can effectively eliminate what isn't true, based on our knowledge of what is. This is what it means to be sceptical in the scientific fields.
Just so it's known, I'm a Gnostic Atheist (sure that, with a high degree of certainty, there are no gods) and a naturalist. I don't believe in the gods of ancient texts. However I'm open to the idea that there could be a powerful force that could potentially fill the role of a god in our universe, it's just that it wouldn't be a god in the literal sense. If anything I could argue that we already have observable evidence in the form of the physical forces and energies (known and unknown) that have forged our universe as we see it now over 14 billion years and beyond.
However I will not ascribe terminology that suggests supernatural or mystical properties. If it exists, it exists in a verifiable AND NATURAL way.
Scepticism is not a straightforward concept and, though I've noticed it used under the definition, it isn't strictly the same as Agnosticism. It is also not and shouldn't be, a state of mind that someone commits to (like agnosticism is). It is the default state of mind everyone should be at until we are shown a verifiable truth or enough truth to tip the scales in the favour of one observation over another.
I am sceptical of the claims of Alternative medicines and celebrity diets. I am not sceptical of how a specialist doctor can find out my genetic illnesses that can be past onto my progeny from a vial of my blood or why processed carbohydrates are going to put me in an early grave if I don't monitor my diet.
@OP:
Avoiding the Pedantry that seems to have engulfed the topic, I offer this:
Where the fuck are all my Erasers going? I'm in a room which is about as big as 2 fiat puntos parked side to side, with no crevices or blindspots around my desk, yet I have on several occasions dropped an eraser, immediately bent down to pick it up only to find that it has completely vanished.
It blows my mind. I have often been so flabbergasted by this that I end up in a total state of confusion for the remainder of the day.
This affects me greatly!
You clearly missed one of my last threads. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.409134-The-Magical-Mysteries-of-the-Mythical-Alot]ccggenius12 said:
[sub]By the way, please don't necro that thread, guys. It'll only end badly for everyone. And I already heard all of the bitching from not citing Hyperbole and a Half and went though that whole song and dance.[/sub]
Er...
Hey, OT again: Forks and spoons always seem to disappear, reappearing only often enough that you never really have to go buy more.
What's up with that?
not really, his is more like "if blue hypothetically existed, where would it most likely be found", then again people see what they want to see when they dislike thingsKwil said:
Why? Thats like saying to a Christian... "If something proved the Christian faith to be false, what do you think it would be?"Compatriot Block said:
Back on topic though... God/Gods have always been the crutch humanity has used in the face of something they don't understand or that has spectacularly not gone their way, so pretty much the OPs question is what has happened in the history of everything that you don't understand so might foreseeable attribute to a god. I have several of these events, but I'll just settle for two. I believe Thor was responsible for the devastation caused by "Hurricane Katrina", and I think either Aphrodite or Eros was responsible for the chick I asked out last week saying no (I'm awesome, seriously what other explanation is there?)
As an atheist, I feel as though I have somehow failed by not being offended by this question. I think it's actually an interesting hypothetical.
So I vote for Rasputin. The man (supposedly) survived being poisoned, shot repeatedly, beaten, and tossed in an icy river. He died from drowning. That's pretty intense.
So I vote for Rasputin. The man (supposedly) survived being poisoned, shot repeatedly, beaten, and tossed in an icy river. He died from drowning. That's pretty intense.
What makes me believe that there is either some higher power is science itself. That is to say that the law of conservation of energy/mass teaches that mass can not be created or destroyed only changed, but the only explanation that scientists can come up with for how the universe came into existence is that all mass was concentrated in one tiny point in space which than exploded. So in my mind something must have created that matter.
Ooof, I don't know about finding God in human history. Most of the stuff in history is pretty damn depressing and ugly.
In the natural world, perhaps in wonders like the Great Barrier Reef? Maybe the complexity of the human brain. All those are pretty impressive, I dunno.
It's difficult to answer, because I don't look at those things and think "Wow, God must have put them there" or even "Maybe God put them there". Although there are people that do, and it makes them happy so yay I suppose. But it's difficult to artificially switch to that mindset.
Edit: After thinking about it, I would have to pick the near-extinction and desperate survival of homo sapiens:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080424-humans-extinct.html
Although that might be stretching "human history"
In the natural world, perhaps in wonders like the Great Barrier Reef? Maybe the complexity of the human brain. All those are pretty impressive, I dunno.
It's difficult to answer, because I don't look at those things and think "Wow, God must have put them there" or even "Maybe God put them there". Although there are people that do, and it makes them happy so yay I suppose. But it's difficult to artificially switch to that mindset.
Edit: After thinking about it, I would have to pick the near-extinction and desperate survival of homo sapiens:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080424-humans-extinct.html
Although that might be stretching "human history"
No it's really not. And your spectacular arrogance in reducing people's faith to a "crutch" is not beneficial to your appearance.MagunBFP said:
A better analogy would be asking a Christian, "If you were an atheist, what would your strongest/most personally important reason be?"
Okay, here we go ...
Let's take the Christian Bible (king James version for simplicity).
The first book of the text is that of Genesis.
The first few chapters start on how everything was created.
Now, try using these words as a sort of direction in drawing the Flower of Life symbol that is supposed to show how everything is in existance.
I like to think of this as the basic template that our world is coded in. *cue Matrix reference.
Now the fun stuff ...
Time/Gravity/Speed are all related so in the first few books, 1 day = ???years.
When God said for there to be light, that was the Big Bang sending everything moving really fast.
Things slow down, 1 day = less years than before.
Garden of Eden is made of 'trees' that are branches of evolution.
Man being forced out of the Garden is our breaking away from the process.
Forced out for eating the fruit of knowledge, we started using tools, lead to above.
Dinosaurs were the 'beasts of the field' mentioned in the later books.
Possibly the Leviathan and Behemoth shown during the 10 commandments part were as well.
God is a programmer, he knows the code but we are in a program that is being run.
The book of Life is the results page.
All the stuff in the Old testament ended up being a loose guide on how to
survive as a species.
The stuff with Jesus is the result of us failing so bad that the only way to counter the
negatives is to offset them with an ultimatum.
Part of the free will thing is that we have to be the ones to accept the tradeoff.
Might add more later.
Let's take the Christian Bible (king James version for simplicity).
The first book of the text is that of Genesis.
The first few chapters start on how everything was created.
Now, try using these words as a sort of direction in drawing the Flower of Life symbol that is supposed to show how everything is in existance.
I like to think of this as the basic template that our world is coded in. *cue Matrix reference.
Now the fun stuff ...
Time/Gravity/Speed are all related so in the first few books, 1 day = ???years.
When God said for there to be light, that was the Big Bang sending everything moving really fast.
Things slow down, 1 day = less years than before.
Garden of Eden is made of 'trees' that are branches of evolution.
Man being forced out of the Garden is our breaking away from the process.
Forced out for eating the fruit of knowledge, we started using tools, lead to above.
Dinosaurs were the 'beasts of the field' mentioned in the later books.
Possibly the Leviathan and Behemoth shown during the 10 commandments part were as well.
God is a programmer, he knows the code but we are in a program that is being run.
The book of Life is the results page.
All the stuff in the Old testament ended up being a loose guide on how to
survive as a species.
The stuff with Jesus is the result of us failing so bad that the only way to counter the
negatives is to offset them with an ultimatum.
Part of the free will thing is that we have to be the ones to accept the tradeoff.
Might add more later.
Personally, I'd say the fact that this planet is exactly the right distance away from a star that is exactly the right size for water to form, and then the fact that in said water the right elements came into contact in the right way, in the right amount to form compounds that could reproduce themselves. And from there, those compounds became more complex to the point they formed cells, and those cells formed systems that worked well together, and from that point everything happened exactly at the right moments for humans to emerge.
Sure, the above is grossly oversimplified, but its food for thought. Or rotten food to be thrown away if you just want to say it was all random (Which, to be fair is an equally, if not even more, fascinating concept to ponder).
Sure, the above is grossly oversimplified, but its food for thought. Or rotten food to be thrown away if you just want to say it was all random (Which, to be fair is an equally, if not even more, fascinating concept to ponder).
Well, if you care to read the OP a second time you'll see it's more like "What would be your strongest/most personally important reason to be an atheist". And assuming you have no such reason, it would be impossible to answer the question. The problem here isn't that atheists are incapable of answering hypothetical questions, it's just VERY BAD phrasing by the OP. He meant A and wrote down B, and we were trying to answer B and failing, because B has no answer.Compatriot Block said:
Actually, no, his analogy is better.Compatriot Block said:
At no point does the OP state "If you believed in the supernatural". In fact, its implying it wants you to NOT believe in the supernatural [As implied by the "Especially for atheists/skeptics" line in the title] and answer the question of what has is most likely supernatural.
Yours is just completely from nowhere. It has a "If you were [another party]", and "Why would you be [other party]".
Both his and the OPs are "If you were forced to give an answer" "What would you say that is not compatible with your beliefs".
It is honestly saying what do you believe is most likely to disprove your beliefs. If it were reworded to a better hypothetical where the hypothetical isn't that you are being forced to answer, but that you do not hold your current beliefs, then it might be more answerable.
As is, as many people have pointed out, our atheist/skeptic beliefs place the odds of the supernatural/divine being involved in any incident as 0. We are asked what is the most likely to be supernatural/divine caused. ALL things have 0 probability. Hence, nothing is in any way likely, and nothing is most likely; all are equally likely as being certainly not supernatural/divine influenced.
What created the thing that created that matter?Candlejack000 said:
Its just adding a middle man.
The answer Christians would give to this situation is "God created the singularity before the big bang" [Assuming they believe in the big bang].
The question that stems from this is what created god?
At some point there is something that has to have existed without something else to create it. Why this has to be a deity and not simply the universe/singularity-before-the-universe is beyond me.
Do you know of another one that'd cause the extinction of the Dinosaurs for his amusement?Vigormortis said:
