The Leap of Faith Out of Reality into Delusional Fantasy of Faith and Belief Stricken God Based Mythologies, Dec 10th, 2008
by Peter
Your comments are welcome to "meaningless at Godless Accident dot com".

Over at his constant diatribe against Richard Dawkins blog writer and faith based delusional Mariano produces what he calls articles against "Atheist Richard Dawkins". What he achieves is simply to demonstate the depth of his faith stricken delusions in the many nothings that his religious notions deliver. A number of times I've commented on this blog and had a dialog. Here is one such dialog of note since it's clear in a number of places where Mariano, like many of his faith stricken ilk, break from their tenious grasp on objective reality and dive head first into the deep end of their delusional fantasies.

Due to the legth of the most recent comment I've posted it here as it's own thread.

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[Mariano y]our pathetic series of rants against reason and rationality in support of your whacked belief stricken delusions of nothings won't change the facts of life that there is no god, no afterlife except bugs eating your corpse, nor any hope of salvation for you by mythical gods.

Dead bodies don't rise from the dead which is proof that there is no god and that all the stories in the bible are just that made up stories of other delusionals.

Face the facts of life and get real or is that something that is too hard for you to do?


"I must say that you present a perfect example of the deleterious influence of the New Atheist movement. You seem to think that belittlement replaces rationality and a more erudite than thou sentiments replace argumentation." - Mariano

Thank you. However, I am not belittling you, if I was doing that you'd really know it. I'm stating facts of life and since you refruse to acknowledge these facts of life by sticking to your whacked out beliefs of magical events and super beings that contravene the laws of mother nature you're clinically "delusional". Delusion means strongly believing things that are not true. That certainly describes you sir.

When someone points out that I have a mistaken idea or a "belief" I take heed and work diligently to eliminate that belief by various methods. Once a belief is identified it can be segregated and systematically attacked until it no longer controls me. Belief itself is EVIL. Belief is one of the mechanisms that humans use to justify all the evil acts they do to each other.

"You made the positive affirmation that "there is no god" -- please provide evidence for your assertion." - Mariano

It's easy to understand that there is no god and no possibility of any gods whatsoever except what you imagine. There are many proofs of no god(s). I gave you one already, dead bodies don't come back to life. The speed of light is another. Due to the speed of light no god can be omnipresent, omnipotent, nor omniscient. No being can do that. Besides god doesn't explain anything, it's just a cozy idea to keep you from freaking out that you're going to die permanently without any possibility of an afterlife. God is evolutions solution to reduce stress in living intelligent systems. It's good that it didn't infect me though - I ask too many questions and think for myself, something I recommend you try for a change.

"You made the positive affirmation that "there is...no afterlife" -- please provide evidence for your assertion." - Mariano

When you die, your body decays and is eaten by microbes and insects. You rot to pieces and are recycled by mother nature, that is the only after life possible, as bug food, unless you get cremated or frozen that is. As for mythical spirits there are none since "you" are a body of cells interacting in biochemical ways with electrical patterns providing the illusion of consciousness. When your body dies all these processes RAPIDLY or IMMEDIATELY stop. Medical doctors might be able to save you in the few minutes before organ, brain and cell death but after that forget it. Gone back to [the nothingness from whence you came]. No magical life after death as your consciousness is DESTROYED as your body rapidly decays and as soon as the electrical patterns that make you up STOP FOREVER and as soon as your brain cells decay they can't ever repeat those electrical patterns that make you up. You're gone forever. This is basic science and anyone without their head shoved up into nonsense faith can see it.

"You made the positive affirmation that "there is no...hope of salvation" -- please provide evidence for your assertion." - Mariano

Not the kind of "salvation" that religious types talk about since we are permanently terminal when we die. No afterlife thus no salvation. Sure you can have the delusional idea that you've been saved here upon the earth all you want, but be clear that it's just in your imagination and not in reality. It's a delusion. They abound with your faith freaks who think that bowing to a mythical god will save you. It's just not going to happen. That's why living your life the best you can now connected to what is real is the only real path to a non-delusional life, and in a sense the only "real salvation free of delusions"!

"You made the positive affirmation that "Dead bodies don't rise from the dead" -- please provide evidence for your assertion. Merely asserting a "faith" based atheist dogma that a mere assertion "is proof" is very far from evidential demonstrations." - Mariano

You've got to be kidding right? It's basic biology. You really are far gone if you don't get this crucial point. Oh, right your mythology REQUIRES you to ignore the facts of life. It's the test of how controllable and gullable you are by those in control of you with religion. It's how they know you can be manipulated for their own gain. Or you're just delusional on your own. Take your pick. See explaination above. There is no faith in this fact of life. Ask any biologist. Test it yourself. Take a chicken or turkey that is alive and have it killed in front of you. Take it home. Put it into a bucket and leave it on the floor of your kitchen for two weeks with a video camera pointed at it to record how biological systems decay. Now that is what happens to you, only more so since human bodies are bigger than chickes and turkeys but not very different from the biological perspective. We are made of the same stuff and many of the same genes! That's right you just murdered a distant cousin with that chicken or turkey.

"You made the positive assertion that "all the stories in the bible are just that made up stories of other delusionals" -- please provide evidence for your assertion." - Mariano

That's an easy one. Since so many of the claimed "magic events" are violations of the known laws of science they can only be stories! Dah! If you think different that is where you take your leap of faith into the deep delusional beliefs and widen your disconnection from reality.

It's highly ironic that faith based beliefs which are supposed to connect someone closer to "god" actually take the believer away from objective reality into made up fantasy worlds.

By the way the onus is upon YOU to prove your wild and whacky beliefs. That is how scientists do it. We look for proof to support our notions and when there isn't any we let the EVIDENCE reshape our ideas. Biology proves that dead bodies decay and don't come back to life thus Jesus could not have risen from the dead. If people actually thought that a man named Jesus came back to life then either they were taken in by a con man or they were just mistaken. Either way it doesn't matter since the teachings of the bible are highly immoral and evil with many acts of murder, genocide, rape, plus numerous other crimes advocated against those who don't "believe". Shameful.

Shame on you for believing in god and the immoral values of which ever bible you believe in.


Mariano,

I am in no way attempting to convert you as it's clear that no matter what I say or no matter what evidence of the nature of Nature which is presented to you you will have your leap of faith into delusions that comfort you as your guidance rather than the harsh objetive reality of real life as the guide in shaping your views. I am simply showing you how delusional you are. You seem to be in the "beyond hope of salvation" (to phrase it in terms you might comprehend) category as you have a committed ontological stance towards your beliefs as reality. You don't seem to be interested in having reality shape your notions and orientation to life as you prefer to have mythology guide and shape your perceptions into a narrow box constrained by afore mentioned dogmatic mythos (whatever virulent varient you have). Before you ask me to prove this the above is demonstrated by your inability to comprehend basic facts of life like dead bodies don't rise from the dead ruling out all possibility of any man, even those named Jesus, from rising from the dead (dead being cell death, brain death and heart death which as the bible story alleges would have been the case). Denying the facts of life seems to be a common afliction of the belief stricken such as yourself - and is what moves you from simply being benignly belief stricken into the delusional category since you refuse to adapt to objective reality - that which is real in Nature.

I do not have faith. I certainly don't have faith in any notions of "atheism" or "antitheism" or such terms. I'm simply a human being being in existence for this brief period (any length of human life is brief in my view). By it's very definition, atheist, or more precicely anti-theist has at it's core the notion of devaluing faith and rejecting faith BECAUSE faith requires a mind vacant of critical thinking and atheist/anti-theism require thought verified against the nature of Nature. Of course you'd attempt to comprehend what I've written in "faith based" terms which seems to be all you know of; accusing me of the personal failure and crime of having faith is all that you've got once you've taken your faith based leap. (I wonder when you left objective reality for faith? When did you take your leap into the fantasy of your particular god mythos?) I rely on science, the scientific method and critical thinking skills.

Look at dying and dead organisms and it's inescapible, dead bodies don't rise from the dead. But not to men or women of faith, for all you see is a false hope that you'll be spared nothingness but only if you believe and have faith a certain way bowing down to the mythical creator of the universe. Yet somehow you never comprehend the basic science that informs us of the true horrors of objective reality: we will all die with no exceptions, we won't survive our deaths except as worm food. All that we ever are will only be memories of those who are alive after we die. When they are gone all that will remain of some of us are our lasting legacy if any. When the planet dies all that ever was the human race will be gone from existence except for any memories we beamed or shipped off world (even if we set up colonies elsewhere eventually those will end as well thus there is an end to the human species).

The universe really is a bleak and meaningless place. Make the best of it and face the facts of life that shapes you in your denial more than you'd care to admit. Your entire mythology is a pathetic fight against the inevitable doom we all face. Grow up and be a fully ontologically developed human being. Mature to a new level of development. Let the discoveries of Newton, Darwin, Tesla, Einstein, Von Newman, and the many invesitgators of the nature of Nature ... in to your mind and inform you to the nature of Nature in all of it's beauity and horrors. Or not; it's up to you. I support your choice but I doubt that you have the guts to stand up and face the facts that all your beliefs in your mythology are just false nothings invented by humans which are wasting your life.

"Yes, the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off." - W. Erhard.

I present in a form that you can comprehend. If you take that as me preaching that's what you bring to the conversation. I simply utter my words to be as accurate as posisble with this medium of communication. However, to characterize me as a preacher would be to misunderstand me. Think of me as a reality thearapist who can guide you back to the road to objective reality.

Objective Reality, don't underrate it for it's what's real after all! - pwl.

No I'm not trading "God the Father" for "Mother Nature". Invoking the name "mother nature" is just an artifact of the english language. No intent to suggest or imply or state that such a being exists is intended. Mother Nature simply refers to nature and objective reality but it's more poetic and I do like poetic language at times. Yet another mistaken impression by yourself. I hope that you can take corrections with your false beliefs however it seems that that is difficult for you. I find it interesteing that I have to keep explaining this point to those of you who keep wanting there to be mythical gods and spirits and angels and demons and things that go bump in the night. The supernatural doesn't exist! Get it through your thick skull. The proof: the supernatural violates the known and well tested laws of the universe thus they can't possibly exist. Fact of life. Get over it. That isn't faith, that is science backed up with proof and validation.

I explore many fields of science and specialize in a few such as information science, simplicty and complexity, software, computers and electronics, ontological questions of being and existence, plus a number of others. One sub specialty is cellular automata and how very simple - and I do mean very simple rules - rules in nature give rise to highly complex systems that are indistinguishable in terms of complexity as any complex system. In other words, how intelligence and functional capabilities unfold NATURALLY in nature from simple systems. The universe is a computer after all built of subatomic particles and fields of energy as it's basic computing units. Another area of research is how beliefs shape and control their human hosts. How people like yourself are so belief stricken with faith that you can't or won't take a hard look at what is real, and even when you attempt to do so you are continually held captive in the prison of your mind by the provablly wrong dogma of religions and other silly notions that have infected the human population.

While it's interesting that "evolution" gives rise to "false" beliefs it's not so strange if you think about it. For example, "belief" and "taking things on faith" can be important for survival and thus those that listen to "beliefs" and trust with "faith" that others tell them might keep you alive. A child is told that there are monsters in the woods when in fact it's wolves and those that venture into the woods might make a tasty morsel for our four legged distant cousins. So there was an evolutionary benefit to those that had belief and faith in others.

The troubles begin when the faithful take the beliefs too seriously and kill others based upon those faiths and beleifs - especially so when those beliefs and faiths are proveably wrong.

Dead bodies do not rise from the dead proves that Jesus could not have risen from the dead and was just a story and was either a mistake of primitive peoples or was a con job. What it wasn't was devine nor magical. If you think it was that is simply evidence that you're delusional and have taken a leap of faith away from where you exist, objective realtiy, towards a realm of fantasy and mythology.

"Evolution" doesn't care. Yes it does not. But it's worse. Evolution doesn't exist. Evolution is just our human word for a set of processes that occur over a wide range of different time scales. The universe doesn't care about you or me. That is true, except that I care about some people. I care and thus a part of the universe does care. You care about your loved ones as seen in the picture of you with your baby. So to say that the universe doesn't care is a mistake as you are a tiny bit of the universe and you do care. Outside of living entities, it's a safe bet that the universe doesn't care. If you care to test that assertion or axiom simply climb to the top of a building and jump. You'll see how much the universe doens't care. Now don't actually do that as I care about you hurting yourself. Call it my self interest that the species evolves and survives.

Yes, evolution doesn't care about truth but then neither do you! If you did you couldn't believe in god and other mythical nonsense like you do!

You don't need to trust what I think nor what you think! You can directly test the universe to find out! That's what is so utterly fantastic about our universe! You can test it to find out what is real and what isn't!

Ok, let's conduct a test.

Newton destroyed god with his breaktrough in understanding gravity and forces of motion even though he was found to be not entirely accurate (darn Einstein but that's another converstation). Ok, Newton proves that you or I or any other human being now, in the past or in the future simply can't jump up from the Earth and land on the Moon. This of course assumes that the Earth and Moon keep in their relative positions as they are now. Newton's formulas prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's impossible for a human being with the aid of rockets or other technology simply can't get to the moon from the earth! Not possible! Proven! Yes you can prove a negative with science! It's don't all the time.

In the same way the laws of biology (aka the facts of life, the birds and bees and bugs) prove that dead bodies don't rise from the dead and thus beyond any doubt jesus could not have risen from the dead thus the bible is wrong and thus it's all just nonsense. Oh, right, there's that rising up to heaven story... oh, that's destroyed by Newton! Jesus could not have risen up to the heavens unless he had a space ship! And what devine being needs a space ship? None, so it's just another mythical story in the bible that fools take literally rather than metaphorically to learn from.

Those who seek what is real have cut into the mythical beliefs and faiths, although it never took much to see through the mythic nothings as not much more than fear or con games to control the group - whatever size it was or is.

I hate to inform you that there is little in the notions of atheism that is consoling. Life is harsh and that is the point that you ignore and wash over by belief in the afterlife and mythical gods that you have zero proof for whereas there is tremendous proof all around you in your life of the actual nature of objective reality. I hate to say it but the proof of no god is staring you in the face.

Some may not be bothered by permanent annialation but most are. I know that my sister went over the to dark side of evangelical christianity after confronting the "meaningless and nothingness of life and death" when she was 18. Now the effects of her delusion have devistated her birth family due to her bizare morals and nonsense that ignores human dignity as any belief in gods necissarily do.

What matters is proof not belief. It matters not what you belief about the material world. What matters is what you can prove or disprove in a testable manner. The impersonal universe aka objective realtiy aka mother nature is the final judge of what is real or not. Of course you can choose what you perceive to be real via your brain's amazing ability to see reality as it wants to.

All possible knowledge is constrained by what is posisble in objective reality. In reality it's not possible for a human being to jump to the moon as proven by Newton.

The chruch was right to fear men such as Newton and Darwin, or rather fear their ideas, as the ideas being highly correlated to Nature destroy and undermine all notions of the god mythologies. All the've got left is to sell faith. Lucky for the god con me and unlucky for the vast majority of human beings and our species as a whole we humans are still suspitable to faith and beliefs.

It's time we grew up and put aside childish notions of gods. Our survival now depends upon it.

Yes, there are many contexts where "belief" and "faith" is used to a wide range of consequences. I speak of the common usage within the context of belief and faith regarding mythical gods and other nonsense. I may also refer to other contexts as well but I usually deliniate those at the time. Unfortunately the words belief and faith have a huge number of definitions that it's important to distinguish the context of usage at times.

It's not that dead bodies are not known to come back to life. In fact that depends upon your medical definition of death. However, you'll note that I've eliminated the case of being saved by modern medicine by specifying organ death, cell death, brain death and heart death. Once those occur forget it. Also once the microbes start their feeding frenzy icky gooey ooze. And the smell. Yikes. The facts of life prevent jesus from rising from the dead.

The only thing that makes jesus rise from the dead is a story that you accept on faith. It's the leap of faith away from the truth of nature into the fantasy world of belief and faith in mythical gods and if you take it seriously as you do, then it's a leap of faith into full on delusions of nothings ruling your life.

To be clear: the known and well tested laws of nature PREVENT dead bodies from coming back to life. Biology prevents it! Chemistry prevents it! Information science prevents it! Entropy prevents it!!! Once a living organism passes the point of no return (as mentioned above) there is no return, just recycling of the raw materials of afore mentioned organism.

I've met people who were saved from death. His heart had stopped and was clincally dead for a couple of minutes in an emergency room! No magic here. Simply educated and wise doctors and assistants who saved his life with a jolt of electricty (let there be life) and some powerful drugs at a time when they were needed (that's an understandment) and could not be produced by the body since it was rapidy shutting down after heart death. Fortunately for this person and many others they were saved. Unfortunately the % of people saved in this manner is very small.

Unfortunately for a man named Jesus who allegedly died a couple of thousand years ago there wasn't that needed ingredient known as modern medicine and besides jesus was a convicted criminal executed on a cross so it wasn't just his heart that had stopped (according to the horrific story - have you seen mel gibson's version, blood everywhere indicating the depth of blood sacrafice cult the christian faith is), it was severe bodily injuries and since he was out in the open for a long time on that darn cross he likely had many infections. It's doubtful that anyone could survive that amount of bodily damage and be saved by a modern medical unit. But alas, no medical unit to save the story, only magic and fairy tales no different than the made up stories of Santa.

I don't presuppose a material world, it's evident by our very existence! It's axiomatic that we exist within a materialistic world. To deny that is to deny your heritage!

It's you who presupposes a spiritual world without any proof and it's you who refuse to absob and comprehend how the actual objective reality where you exist quickly dispenses with any such spiritual nivana's that you can imagine.

"... if you saw a body come back to life you would be forced to deny the evidence and you would explain it away by reasserting absolutely materialistic. No wonder that Jesus said of some people, "they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead" (Luke 16:31)." - Mariano

You're speaking hypothetically which means your speaking nonsense. It's clear that any person interested in the truth and what is real would need an explaination supported by actual evidence, unlike yourself who just takes magical events on faith. Naturally we're talking about a body three days rotten in the case of the man named jesus so it could not have happened. Human beings can't jump to the moon from earth without the aid of machines and even a body three days dead is way past redemption back into the living even for modern science!

It's more likely that the man named jesus was a con man who got you good even two thousand years after he died! His twin brother must have hit the jack pot with the ressurection ploy...

By the way the people who wrote the bible were masterful con men and cult leaders who knew from many centuries of practice what to say to gullibible people such as yourself to get you to ignore sane rational people such as myself. The quote you used, Luke 16:31, is a typical cult indroctrination and cult membership maintenance "rule" or "belief" or "dogma" or "whatever name you want to call it" that is aimed squarely at keeping YOU witin the cult so that you keep giving your 10% each week in religion tax to them. In return they promise you'll be spared from the horrors of permanent death with an everlasting nervana of puffy white clouds and creame cheeze or virgins or whatever.

It's not that I deny miracles! Nature prohibits them! Wow, to foist upon me the power to alter the nature of Nature! Wow. It's another lession of many for you and your ilk, I'm simply a human being, humble to be sure, but arrogant to think that I determine the nature of Nature? Not on your life. But that is what you do when you ascribe attributes to your mythical nothings of gods. You say they are this or that or mad or happy if you believe or don't believe... yet no proof ever...

Dead bodies don't rise from the dead since a dead body can't violate the laws of Nature nor can living ones for that matter! When you're complex system has broken down it will never restart. Ask an emergency room worker just after they've lost someone they were trying to save. Ask them for the medical technical reasons the person died, what happened to their bodily systems. That is what is real. Dreams of sweet nothings and puffy white clouds for them are but just thoughts to comfort the living.

Miracles violate the known and well tested laws of Nature thus they could not have happened, thus they can't happen, thus they won't happen. It's not like these laws of nature are just ideas we have. Nope, they are hard cold facts of life. If you don't like them too bad for you but they won't change for you nor anyother man. Sure we might get more accurate like going from Newton to Einstein but even Einstein must incorporate Newton within the understanding of Nature that it represents. Yes, we might not have the 100% accurate map but it's really accurate. I gather that you don't fully comprehend just how far advanced our science really is now. Magic isn't real, it's just for shows, but your brain hasn't figured that out yet since you made some ontological decisions about the nature of Nature that includes mythical super beings that there is no proof for a long time ago and you're simply sticking to your guns even though the evidence is staring at your face all day long while your eyes are open.

The light you see is proof that gods can't exist! The evidence abounds all around you. Open your eyes to see the nature of Nature. Or don't, but then it's your loss as you waste your precious limited existence with fantasies of mythical super beings and silly immoral stories from two thousand year old books that are so out dated as to not be funny since those morals are highly dangerous to the survival of our planet in our modern nuclear WMD era.

The evidence doesn't not care that you have the freedom to consider it. It's just as impersonal as the universe. Ultimately it likely matters not that you get what I'm saying to you, unless you're planning a path of destruction in your life and my words would diswuade you from said path of religiously justified ferver. I would advice against faith because it is what has ensnarled your mind in so twisted a manner that there is likely zero hope for your case. You are likely delusional for the rest of your life with no hope of ever seeing the nature of Nature. In other words you are doomed by your faith and your commitment to any actions you take based upon it. You are sentenced to life a false life driven by spewtum based beliefs which have zero meaning in the actual objective reality. If that's the case life if very harsh indeed for you.

Then you can choose to get it.

Yes, the speed of light has been slowed down but that doesn't change the fact of Einstein upon our most advanced comprehensions of the nature of Nature. In fact it bolsters our understanding and places yet another nail in the coffin of mythical gods as just a failed primitive human attempt at science from thousands of years ago. The speed of light was slowed due to the medium it was traveling through not through some miralce magic of super nothing beings from mythology as you'd lead us to believe.

You've got to be kidding right? Justify why murder, genocide, rape, and numerous other crimes are immoral? Either that or you are one of those who foolishly and mistakenly think that morals only exist with a god to impose them? For one any imposed morality isn't. For two, there is no proof of god and many disproofs that have yet to be successfully dismantled by the faith and belief stricken. For three, it's in the survival interest of human beings (and other sentient creatures) to continually develop and "evolve" their "morals" aka "rules for cooperating and livng together to provide benefit to oneself and one's group".

You can choose to continue along your path of a wasted life filled with mythological delusions as if they were real or you can begin to unfold the self imposed (or group imposed) mental prison of faith and belief in your life towards freeing yourself from that bondage and live a full life more highly connected with objective reality in all it's natural beauity and horrors as they arrise in your life.

"Yes, the truth will set you free but first it will piss you off." - W. Erhard.

I suspect that you are in the denial phase (although you might be pissed off with the above). It'll be interesting if you ever progress to the first steps of dismantling your delusional faith based belief prison and take the first steps towards a new freedom and englightenment in your life. I ecourage you to do so. The choice is of course, yours.

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COMMENTS

Hi Ryan, well that's a mistaken perception that I have any faith in no god. The mistake is easy to make and most people do make it. The key is that I back up the assertion with reasoned facts of life that are incontrovertible. For example, dead bodies don't rise from the dead is proof positive that no man ever rose from the dead, just as Newtonian Gravity equations state that it's impossible for humans to jump to the moon without the aid of technology. These facts are incontrovertible. That is, these facts PREVENT possibilities from occurring and as such PROVE BEYOND ANY DOUBT that jesus didn't rise from the dead nor did he ascend to heaven. To think otherwise is to take the leap of faith and lose oneself in delusional fantasy worlds. There are a number of books with excellent science based proofs, from many points of view, that gods simply can't exist in any form other than human imagination.

So this isn't belief nor faith on my part. It's rational critical thinking verified against Objective Reality. Can't get any better than that!

Peter at 11:27AM on Dec 10th 2008

COMMENT 2

Ryan, yes "a little agnosticism" hurts everyone...

It leaves your brain open to mind poo.

I'm all for advancing our understanding and correcting any well tested and well known theories such as Einstein or whatnot. However, it's improbable that any new theory that if it were to replace Einstein would overturn all aspects of Einstein's General and Special Relativity. Any new theory must incorporate the well tested aspects of Einstein's theories otherwise the new theory doesn't correlate to objective reality. You see the "testing" of a theory actually isn't testing the theory, it's testing objective reality! If the test results turn up as expected then we say the theory is "close" or "correct" or "correlates highly" with objective reality. However the nature of Nature (objective reality) hasn't changed in billions of years all that much and there is no indication that any of the fundamental aspects of objective reality will change in the next billions of years. So while human understanding and comprehension and knowledge and know how may advance the nature of Nature isn't going to do much. We're stuck with the objective reality that we have.

Being an agnostic leaves you vulnerable to the sooth sayers and spiritualists and other whacked out idol and super being worshipers. It your choice for sure, but a dangerous choice for you.

You also underestimate our current levels of science and the impact that they have on the so called "first cause" or "first move" and on the understanding of how no gods are possible given the laws of Nature and the nature of Nature that has been uncovered so far. Our science is quite advanced now and while much will improve much will stay the say since it already is highly correlated with objective reality. Getting more accurate won't change Newton or Einstein as demonstrated by the fact that engineers building buildings, bridges, homes, ships, etc... on Earth use Newton and don't need to concern themselves with Einstein for 99.9% of what they build. Sure the GPS system uses Einstein's equations to correct for the time warping effect of the satellites larger relative speeds - so we use the resolution of the theory that will get the job done!

Being agnostic simply means that you've not worked out for yourself some questions, and you mentioned "first mover" as (one of) your incomplete thoughts that leads you to be open to the dangers of mind poo.

The "first mover" as you say isn't resolved by the "god" explaination and the reason that we all love to quote is "who created god"? Yes, god doesn't explain anything.

Now I've written much on [Dinesh D'Souza's] icky blog about how it's not possible for gods to exist. Surely you've read all of that? If not go back and read it again.

It's clear that now gods are not possible since they would be magically required to violate the well known and tested laws of Nature (not of science but of Nature). The speed of light is Nature's way of saying "hey all beings are not super beings" and to god she says "nope you're not permitted due to the speed of 'c' (light)"! No omnipresence, no omnipotence, no omniscience. Nada. That eliminates gods from the beginning of time to the end of time - for as long as the speed of "c" rules the universe which has been from the big bang till the big crunch or big chill whichever or whatever it will be.

There are hundreds of other theories that are highly correlated with the nature of Nature (objective reality) that rule out gods and magic in all manner of fields of science. Hundreds. Start learning science and it's abundantly clear that we're in a harsh natural environment devoid of any intelligence or design other than that of our own making.

We have accomplished much evolving here from the muck to upright walking and space ships. We have much further to go. Sure in 1000 years - if we survive the great dumbing down of humanity that religions and believism and faith inflict upon our species - we might even have much longer lives and live relatively disease free and live on other planets in our star system (Io, Europa, Mars, to name a few) and we might even be on the way to the stars. Or not if the delusionals blow us up first.

One thing is clear is that Newton will still apply and since that is the case gods can't exist! Yes, Newton was feared because his work disproves the notion of gods. You don't even need Einstein's speed of "c" work for that.

In any event being agnostic is highly dangerous for your temporal natural mind for you could more easily end up flipping to being a delusional god freak. A nasty mental disease.

Learn some science. The more that I learn the more amazed with Nature and the nature of Nature (objective reality) in it's full HORROR (our inevitable permanently dead bug filled future) as well as it's full BEAUTY (our living now and future)!

Our world is filled with horror and beauty, harness and kindness, good and evil (acts of men), the only question that ultimately has any meaning to us is which do you make happen in your life? I choose to bring beauty and kindness and all that I can that is good to life. I refuse to support peoples delusions as that takes them away from the now in which we live.


COMMENT 3

There is a huge difference between mind poo of the religious nature and potential theories that explain the universe. For one religious mind poo is never properly forumlated as a scientific hypothesis but rather is stated as if it's fact beyond reproach. Every potentially valid scientific theory has ways that it can be falisified and if those turn out to be the case then it's clear that the potential theory needs to be rejected or adjusted. Not so with religious mind poo, usually it's the critic who is tossed aside and many times tossed aside out of the community or worse murdered/killed/destroyed in a pogram or war or uprising or bombing or other act of religiously inspired hate violence.

So you can mock me all you want with a saterical statement that isn't what I said by any means or you can admit that you've left your brain wide open to you becoming just another religious whack job since you've not learned basic science and critical thinking enough to know the difference between mind poo of any sort and what facts of life and Nature are.

Yes we don't know everything by any means, not by a long shot. But our knowledge of the universe as it developes into the future must take into account the actual objective reality that we exist within. Since we have many hundreds and actually thousands of scientific theories that have been proven or highly correlated with objective reality (Nature) at this point in time it's likely that the vast majority of them will stand the test of time either as they are or with minor adjustments.

Regardless dead bodies will still stay dead without the rapid intrevention of advanced medical assistance. Yes, that will always mean that jesus couldn't have risen from the dead and that the story is just that, a story without any basis in fact. No, that in and of itself doen't prove no first mover as you satrically suggested. For that other facts of life, science, and the nature of Nature can be examined to rule out the possibly of a first mover being a god.

Yes, actually I am a scientist by the way. No I'm not studying to be a physicist although I read a lot of physics and have studied it somewhat. I am a systems scientist, I study systems ranging from simply systems to complex systems, machine systems, information systems, all the way through human systems. I am specialist in a number of fields including advanced information systems, cellular automata, how simple systems emerge into complex systems indistinguishable from complex systems as they cross a complexity thereshold, electronics, artificial intelligence (and the lack there of in systems especially human systems), simple systems, complex systems, and the list goes on. As a systems scientist I dwelve deeply into many fields to accomplish the tasks in my professional career suplimented my an insatable curosity about the Natural Objective Reality where in we exist. As such I work with scientists in many fields. Since my birth family was into the catholic religion and attempted to indroctrinate me in their mind poo cult I have had to deal with quesitons of a religious nature since a very young age, earlier than most I suspect. Asking questions are the best defense against accepting mind poo yet keeping an open mind is also an invitation to disaster. The application of well tested knowledge to questions of existence provides tremendous insight and allows a sharp edged tool for slicing through the crap that people throw at you all day long. One amoung many of my inspirations in this practical slicing and dicing of thought is Richard Feynman. Critical thinking is also a speciality of mine.

As to your ridicoulous statement that "I am VERY enamored of science VERY enamored of science (to the same extent that Observant is enamored with his bible)" you're clearly a nut job or deeply misunderstand science. Why? Well if you understood science and the scientific method you'd realize that science, valid science, is backed up with rigerous testing that proves or disproves the correlation of a theory with objective realtiy and the nature of Nature. In fact we can even measure the "accuracy" of a scientific theory or our ability to test it against objective reality.

One of my guiding principles is that I'm open to questinging any axiom or fact or thought or idea or statement that I have or make to see if it's valid or not in terms of objective reality. Any means any.

Ask that of the religious nut jobs like "Observant" and you'll see a completely different attitude. They relay upon faith. I reject faith of any kind. They are guided by dogma. I'm guided by results from scientific testing. A huge difference. If you can't tell the difference I suggest you start learning the basic investigative methods of critical thinking and the scientific method.

One of the most interesting systems that I study are human belief and faith systems.

I have an insatabible ability to absorb knowledge and infomation and correlate it with scientific theories and objective reality. This is due to the early defensive and investigative questions that I asked as to what is real and what isn't real as a child. I developed the slice and dice of critial thinking.

Mind poo gets sliced and diced around me.

So your statement, Ryan, that "It's impossible to walk on water or raise the dead, so clearly no being of any sort could have preceded or caused the big bang" is known as a "deletion" since it deletes many steps. It's common for the human mind to skip steps as a time saver and as a way of simplifying. You could also call the statement a "generalization that chunks up" leaving out the details that a fully formed statement about the universe would need.

One of my major points is that you don't need to be an educated scientist to determine that the religous beliefs and leap of faith are false and have little to do with objective reality. The "dead bodies don't rise from the dead" is a statement meant to simplify the argument to it's core essential point. If someone accepts that jesus did rise from the dead, as many do, clearly they have taken the leap of faith. However, I find that many people of faith haven't actually thought about it in real terms before and when confronted with facts of life which they know are true (dead bodies staying dead) they either begin to really think for the first time or they fall victim to the advanced brain washing that they have been subjected to in their lifes. In otherwords they are so entwined with the mythology as a guidence system that even if they rejected it all they have a long road back to objective reality.

The point that I make is that rational throught, critical thinking skills, the scientific method, actual real science and some practical common sense can set you free of mind poo.

So while you might be "agnostic" you might want to protect your brain from the religious mind poo that has no basis in objective reality.

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