Are Atheists More Religious Now?

[Tank]

Edward

Are you the only person who believes what you do in the sense of your God perception being unique to you?

Regards
Chris

Yes. Absolutely. In fact, that is a theory I want to write on some day, the fact that there is a primordial force of consciousness, but everyone personifies it in their own way--atheists included. Atheists just see it as their physical self. I see it as "my Father," and I am His son. I pray to my God and He speaks to me, and I have seen many "miracles" in his name. But I know that my Father is a psychological construct I use to understand and get in touch with, if you will, the primordial consciousness that prevades everything--the primordial consciousness, in fact, that I will return to when I die, just like you will, just like everyone does.

I admit the above is a pretty religious statement, but you asked. If one day I can explain it philosophically so others can understand it and refine it or diminish it, and if one day I can explain it mathematically, or at least model it mathematically, then I will be blessed. But right now the paragraph above and a paper I wrote on consciousness is all I have. You can read the paper here: http://www.veridican.com/paper1.pdf

Edward

Thank you for a marvellously straight answer. I had fully expected to have either been ignored or have had a pile of obfuscation thrown up, which reveals my own prejudices about what I expected you to be.

I think you're ideas are barking mad though, but very much in a harmless eccentric kind of way, and I'd be delighted to sit down and have a face-to-face chat with you about your world view one day. In the mean time this place will have to do.

I'm busy today so I'll consider a further reply later, and again thank you for stating your view in such a forthright manner, it's such a pleasant change to find a theist who is prepared to make an effort and stand up for their ideas, not those of others.

Regards
Chris

[Edward the Theist]

Nothing is a very unstable state.  Also, virtual particles show that occasionally matter comes out of nothingness.

Nothingness is an impossible state; it is self-contradictory (i.e., the state of nothingness is something). Of course, I don't have the proof of this, but I would like to find it someday.

[Edward the Theist]

The best way for anyone to be able to understand evolution without having to trust what anyone else has to say about the issue (which seems to be what you mean by 'faith' in this instance) is to really educate yourself on the topic.  I think the hypothesis that there is a god is far far FAR more unlikely than anything verified by the scientific method has to offer.  I've heard "it seems so far fetched, so impossible, there has to be something more" applied to evolution more than once - my response is that just because you personally can't fathom it, that is not an adequate criticism of the process nor does it in any way suggest logically that a god exists. .

I'm not sure how you want to define God, but it is very hard for me to comprehend how something can exist for no reason at all. Do you realize that without something like a God, you have a singularity of matter and energy sitting there waiting to "bang" for absolutely no reason at all. When you really contemplate it, it's like magical thinking. God, at least in some form, is actually the remedy for that magical thinking.

 

This argument seems like a complicated 'god-of-the-gaps' argument - and that's fine if you personally feel comfortable accepting it, but there's no logical reason anyone else needs to accept it - they may just understand the evolutionary process more than you do so they aren't as confused by the process and thus lack the need for a deity to make it make sense.

Believe it or not, I have studied evolution. I agree with evolution for the most part. I'm more concerned with cosmology.

By the way, who the heck is the guy in your avatar. He just looks like someone you have to keep away from the children...I don't know.

[Edward the Theist]

You'd be surprised how much you can learn right here
 

I'm sure you're right.

No mention of the origin of life, why is that?  Well, as I mentioned before evolutionary theory was never formulated or meant to explain the origin of life but only changes in populations of organisms over time.  The field of abiogenesis is what is inquiring into the origins of life - a separate field from evolutionary biology relying more upon the areas of organic chemistry and geophysics then evolutionary biology.  The research, however, is fairly fascinating stuff and while fleshing out the process which led to what we call life is difficult, slow and frustrating sometimes the small number of dedicated researchers have made some amazing and enlightening discoveries along the way as I had mentioned previously.

Understood. And as I was saying to pinkocommie, I'm really more concerned about original cosmology than evolution or abiogenesis. But let's face it, if they could have found the way original life began, they would have, and would have duplicated it. But it doesn't matter, because I'm not suggesting it magically appeared. If there was a consciousness that began the universe, than it is probably responsible for the beginning of life here and anywhere else. If that consciousness doesn't exist, then we may never know, and it probably wouldn't matter anyway. No God = breeding-is-all-that-matters. And even that doesn't matter. Nothing really matters in that case.

The assumption here is that the processes at work are completely random and this is not true.  Reactions will happen in accordance to the properties of the molecules involved.  Just as Miller showed a particular arrangement of atmospheric gases and natural energy can produce organic compounds and as Dave Deamer showed that phospholipids can self assemble into vesicles as well as how Claudia Huber and Gunter Wachtershauser demonstrated the self assembly of small polypeptides, there is not some completely random, chaos in which life arose.

You know, the more you detail the pathetic attempts to reproduce an environment in which a cell (that can actually survive and reproduce) is created, the more convinced I am that it had to be consciously directed. I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying that's the effect of this whole abiogenesis research.

I remember recently there was an article in the news "Life created in the Lab!" All it was was some artificial DNA injected into an already existing bacteria. So you see, it looks desperate, and that desperation looks foolish and supports quite the opposite opinion.

It's not that it's an "unlikely process",

No, it is an unlikely process. Even if it's true, it's extremely unlikely that abiogenesis, creation of something out of nothing, and evolution would occur and work. Especially when you compare it simply to nothing existing at all, which is the simplest possible state of being--absent a God.

[Edward the Theist]

Edward

Thank you for a marvellously straight answer. I had fully expected to have either been ignored or have had a pile of obfuscation thrown up, which reveals my own prejudices about what I expected you to be.

You're welcome. Thanks for the marvellously straightfoward question.

I think you're ideas are barking mad though, but very much in a harmless eccentric kind of way, and I'd be delighted to sit down and have a face-to-face chat with you about your world view one day. In the mean time this place will have to do.

I agree. It's just that I've made certain observations and experienced certain things and came to certain conclusions (detailed in that paper) that I simply can't divorce myself from. To do so, for me, would always be a lie. I would always know I was full of shit, and a coward at that. I think it would be a sin to delude myself in that way--even if ultimately I am wrong.

But I fully realize I could be wrong. My only goal is to go forward with the idea of consciousness being external to central nervous systems and try to make a logically coherent model of cosmology, even if ultimately it is wrong. Of course I don't think it's wrong. But maybe one day we will sit down face to face and ponder the mysteries of the universe. That would be cool.

I'm busy today so I'll consider a further reply later, and again thank you for stating your view in such a forthright manner, it's such a pleasant change to find a theist who is prepared to make an effort and stand up for their ideas, not those of others.

Regards
Chris

Again, thanks for giving me a chance to. Do Christians even come in here and try anymore? It just seems that the Church is so discredited these days that they wouldn't even try.

[Squid]

No God = breeding-is-all-that-matters. And even that doesn't matter. Nothing really matters in that case.

Why is it that you equate the absence of a deity with a purposeless life?  Most of the the atheists I know see their life as purposeful - to be a good parent, a mentor, a teacher, to help others, to share music and/or art - a pursuit of individual passions can provide purpose.  Just because there is no supreme law-giver to tell everywhere what purpose their life should serve doesn't mean that meaning is lacking all together.  I don't see absence of god as an automatic plunge into some meaningless void.

You know, the more you detail the pathetic attempts to reproduce an environment in which a cell (that can actually survive and reproduce) is created, the more convinced I am that it had to be consciously directed. I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying that's the effect of this whole abiogenesis research.

I remember recently there was an article in the news "Life created in the Lab!" All it was was some artificial DNA injected into an already existing bacteria. So you see, it looks desperate, and that desperation looks foolish and supports quite the opposite opinion.

That's the problem with news articles, they want you to read them so they use titles like that.  What the researchers did was quite amazing in itself but, no they did not created a completely synthetic life form and it probably won't occur.  Even evolution, the process of change in life forms uses what is already available and from this comes novel structures, behaviors, traits and so forth.

As to the "pathetic attempts" of the researchers in the origin of life field, I would not see it as pathetic at all rather as another step in the pursuit of knowledge.  I am curious as to why you think it looks desperate and foolish - what about the research is it that rubs you the wrong way?  Is it actually the research itself or just the fact that people are even researching this topic at all?

No, it is an unlikely process. Even if it's true, it's extremely unlikely that abiogenesis, creation of something out of nothing, and evolution would occur and work. Especially when you compare it simply to nothing existing at all, which is the simplest possible state of being--absent a God.

Upon what do you base this statement?

[SEQLAR]

"I pray to my God and He speaks to me, and I have seen many "miracles" in his name.

:|

[Sophus]

No God = breeding-is-all-that-matters. And even that doesn't matter. Nothing really matters in that case.

I've seen it more like supply and demand. What value can today possibly have if there is an infinite supply of tomorrows? Ever since becoming an atheist I've valued my life so much more.  

At the same time I never liked somebody else trying to define my purpose in life for me. No matter what I did the point of it was suppose to be "to glorify God". It hindered my creativity and drained my drive. It also policed my thoughts so that I couldn't fully appreciate the work of others.

[Martin TK]

I blame myself.

I really should narrow the topics that I bring up in posts. Obviously, I can't respond to the current barrage of opinion expressed, though I have read it all. But in order to respond intellectually, I'd actually have to study for about a year. But I blame myself, because I'm the one who broached the topics.

Honestly, I'm not all the concerned about evolution. I just think it required a guiding hand of some sort, a consciousness. It just seems that chance would have wiped out life as often as it created it, thus never allowing for evolution to occur. But one could argue that the first life form was too hardy to kill off so easily--okay, fine.

But that chance would have created such a structure...I mean it's possible, but I just can't accept it that way. It simply takes too much faith on my part, and I don't have it. I'd rather just say "I don't know." I do know that most mutations kill off the mutant before it can ever breed, so evolution not only has to occur by blind chance, but also by the natural selection of fortuitous mutations.

I honestly don't think you could set up a more unlikely scenario, but perhaps extremely unlikely scenarios is what's required if you remove all notions of God. And by God, I don't even mean a person. I mean a force like consciousness that has volition and the ability to shape the physical universe. Still, if there is no God, and maybe there isn't, I don't think anything would actually exist. If there were no God, it would seem more likely that there would have been an eternal "nothing." No universe, and certainly no life.

Hi Edward,

It's been a while since I was on here, so I'm way behind, but I did read most of this thread.  I wanted to answer this particular post, because I think it's important that you understand, from my perspective, at least one or two things.  First, you said something about life being destroyed as often as it is created, is actually quite right.  According to most biologists I know, nearly 98% of all the life species that have existed on this planet are NOW extinct.  That's a lot of life destroyed.

You talk about not having enough faith to believe in the chance that life somehow began and continues by chance, but you have enough faith to believe that a "god" somehow has been able to suspend the laws of Physics and Science to interfere with life on Earth.

You are making a very typical Theist argument for the existence of a god, however you wish to define him/her/it.  What evidences do you present for this theory that there might be an eternal "nothing" as you say, if there is no god?  It seems to me that you suffer from the same "need" that many humans do, the NEED to have an explaination for all that you do not understand.  This is a normal human need, actually; and one that has been the driving force for the nearly 6,000 gods that we can now define as mythical across the globe.

Anyway, welcome to HAF, and I can attest that if you are respectful on here, NO ONE will ban you, and you get a lot more wiggle room here than any atheist will EVER get on a Christian forum.  I'd know because I've been banned from nearly every religious forum on the net, NOT because I debate using bad language, am somehow abusive, or because I am rude, crude, or ruthless; but because I refuse to bend my world view and eventually that is enough to have me banned.  Good luck..

[Edward the Theist]

"I pray to my God and He speaks to me, and I have seen many "miracles" in his name.

:|

A. My God is not your God.

B. The ultimate monistic conscious force probably doesn't give a shit about disease.

[Edward the Theist]

You talk about not having enough faith to believe in the chance that life somehow began and continues by chance, but you have enough faith to believe that a "god" somehow has been able to suspend the laws of Physics and Science to interfere with life on Earth.

Well, you know, you find a watch on a beach...and all that.

You are making a very typical Theist argument for the existence of a god, however you wish to define him/her/it.

How is hypothesizing a force of consciousness in the creation of the universe, given my observations of consciousness and the apparent design of the universe any different than any other scientific inquiry?

What evidences do you present for this theory that there might be an eternal "nothing" as you say, if there is no god?

A. The inate logic that if there was no purpose for something to exist, then it wouldn't exist. To just say "Well, it does." is both faithy thinking and close-mindedness bordering on psychiatric denial at the same time.

It seems to me that you suffer from the same "need" that many humans do, the NEED to have an explaination for all that you do not understand.  This is a normal human need, actually; and one that has been the driving force for the nearly 6,000 gods that we can now define as mythical across the globe.

So, you're saying as an atheist you have no need to have an explanation for all you don't understand?

[notself]

Edward the Theist:
I'm not sure how you want to define God, but it is very hard for me to comprehend how something can exist for no reason at all. Do you realize that without something like a God, you have a singularity of matter and energy sitting there waiting to "bang" for absolutely no reason at all. When you really contemplate it, it's like magical thinking. God, at least in some form, is actually the remedy for that magical thinking.

All you appear to be doing is taking the phrase, "We don't know what came before the singularity or what made it 'bang' " and substituting the phrase, "God came before the singularity and made it 'bang'."  Why did this being come to exist? How did your god come to exist?  Did this being come from nothing at all? Was it just sitting there waiting until it decided to cause the singularity to 'bang'?  How is this not magical thinking?

You credit this god of yours with the ability to act spontaneously.  How is this different from the singularity acting spontaneously?  Perhaps you are misspelling your concept as 'god' when you should be spelling it 'gap' [in knowledge].

As for consciousness, it has no real definition.  Look the word up and you will find it is defined as aware.  Look up awareness and you will find it defined as conscious.   There is no indication that consciousness is an independent force in the universe. Consciousness, as nearly as we can tell, is an emergent property of complex life similar to quorum sensing arising when a sufficient number of bacteria are in a single location. The following is from PubMed.  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11544353

Abstract
Quorum sensing is the regulation of gene expression in response to fluctuations in cell-population density. Quorum sensing bacteria produce and release chemical signal molecules called autoinducers that increase in concentration as a function of cell density. The detection of a minimal threshold stimulatory concentration of an autoinducer leads to an alteration in gene expression. Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria use quorum sensing communication circuits to regulate a diverse array of physiological activities. These processes include symbiosis, virulence, competence, conjugation, antibiotic production, motility, sporulation, and biofilm formation. In general, Gram-negative bacteria use acylated homoserine lactones as autoinducers, and Gram-positive bacteria use processed oligo-peptides to communicate. Recent advances in the field indicate that cell-cell communication via autoinducers occurs both within and between bacterial species. Furthermore, there is mounting data suggesting that bacterial autoinducers elicit specific responses from host organisms. Although the nature of the chemical signals, the signal relay mechanisms, and the target genes controlled by bacterial quorum sensing systems differ, in every case the ability to communicate with one another allows bacteria to coordinate the gene expression, and therefore the behavior, of the entire community. Presumably, this process bestows upon bacteria some of the qualities of higher organisms...

[Edward the Theist]

You credit this god of yours with the ability to act spontaneously.  How is this different from the singularity acting spontaneously?

Are you saying you believe a singularity can exist as its own cause and act spontaneously?

Consciousness, as nearly as we can tell, is an emergent property of complex life similar to quorum sensing arising when a sufficient number of bacteria are in a single location.

You can try to make that sound scientific, but you are thinking magically. You take a simple solution that begs more questions and call it your truth in the matter--just like magic. I would encourage you to read my paper on the subject, but that's up to you. I just don't want to re-type it all here in this post.

http://www.veridican.com/paper1.pdf

[i_am_i]

How is hypothesizing a force of consciousness in the creation of the universe, given my observations of consciousness and the apparent design of the universe any different than any other scientific inquiry?

You're kidding, right?

Are you presently enganged in testing your hypothesis? If so, how?

[notself]

You credit this god of yours with the ability to act spontaneously.  How is this different from the singularity acting spontaneously?

Are you saying you believe a singularity can exist as its own cause and act spontaneously? Why not?  You are saying your god acted spontaneously, a cause without cause.  There is just as much evidence that the singularity is a cause without cause.  You have just named this un-caused cause, god.  You could have named it singularity just as easily.

Consciousness, as nearly as we can tell, is an emergent property of complex life similar to quorum sensing arising when a sufficient number of bacteria are in a single location.

You can try to make that sound scientific, but you are thinking magically. You take a simple solution that begs more questions and call it your truth in the matter--just like magic. I would encourage you to read my paper on the subject, but that's up to you. I just don't want to re-type it all here in this post. You aren't supporting your statements on this thread.  Perhaps you could cut and paste from your paper.  The source I quoted regarding quantum sensing is scientific.  PubMed is a service that provides abstracts from scientific articles published in peer reviewed scientific magazines.  No magical thinking about quorum sensing. Chemicals produce response in bacterial genes and initiate communication between bacteria both of same and differing species.  If you wish to call these "triggers" you may but that does not prove that consciousness exists outside of a chemical soup.

http://www.veridican.com/paper1.pdf