>RELIGION ABSOLUTELY BTFO!!!! HOW CAN THEY EVEN COMPETE In

>>9155537
>In all seriousness, Hitchens' roast of religion is pretty solid. How can theists even respond to that?

Faith, d'uh.

Society and religion are one and the same. They can't be separated for long.

>>9155547

>Society and religion are one and the same.

Define religion

>>9155547

>Being this brainwashed.

>>9155567
>athiests calling anyone brainwashed

>>9155555
>Define religion

Society :^)

>>9155567
name one atheist civ ever

im waiting

>>9155577

Depends on what you define as religion. Japan and China might be seen as societies that have prospered without a belief in a monotheistic religion.

If you insist on moving the goal posts and claiming that there is no distinction between religion and stuff like Zen Buddhism then I'd move to modern times.


While it is true that most of the greatest societies in the world right now have an history of religious belief, their success can be better attributed to the spread of humanism than theology.

You might also notice that some of the greatest countries to live in right now are moving towards atheism while shit holes like Africa are becoming increasingly religious. You can also notice this in the US by comparing the north to the south.


I'd also like to mention that that isn't a valid argument against atheism. Even if there were no great atheist civilization, it still wouldn't mean that they couldn't exist.

I also think that that's a dumb point to make when we(The west) are increasingly moving away from religion while simultaneously enjoying the peak of human civilization.

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>Hitchens' roast of religion is pretty solid
only on a certain kind of metaphysics

atheism is the easy way out

>>9155640

Theism is the easy way out.

>>9155645
nah

>"If you took every book and record of every religion and destroyed it, 1000 years from now, those religions would NEVER return as the same. Ever. There might be religions, but they would be different.
If you took every book and text about science and destroyed it, 1000 years from now, they would ALL be back. Exactly the same with the exact same information."

>mfw this is an actual argument from the book
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

>>9155679
THAT is hilarious.
>implying we would get the same answers if we used a different number system

>>9155628
Zen Buddhism is a religion, what the fuck are you talking about?
They have literal demi-gods

>>9155679

So what's your counter argument.


>>9155688

We'd still have 10 fingers so we'd probably still work with a similar number system.

>>9155628
I never mentioned monotheism. Egypt, Greece, and Rome are all better examples of successful polytheist societies than Japan.

A natural theology which holds that God is the anima mundi is still... theology. So there goes China. And I'm not sure if this was in dispute but Shinto is plainly a religion.

We don't exist in a cultural-historical vacuum. Since you're likely a determinist, how can you discount Christianity as a causal element of Western prosperity? The notion of atheism as somehow contributing to a productive way of living is ridiculous. The West would totally flop if the ghost of Christianity weren't there to hold it together. Even returning to a pagan civic religion would be infinitely preferable to accepting atheism; atheism is inherently anti-social.

Also
>peak of human civilization
this isn't the 19th century anymore man, nor is it the zenith of Athens or Rome.

>>9155696
>So what's your counter argument.
presenting a counterargument to this trash degrades my point of view by presenting yours as though it were worthy of debate. you are not worth arguing with. if you like take that as another internet victory. I don't care

>>9155694

They dont treat their own "pantheon" in the same way a lot of other religions do though. The buddhists "gods" are either beings of different planes of existence which are subject to the same rules as us mortals, or are manisfestations of the "Buddha Nature" canonized by their followers. In that case they are revered more as symbols of their ideals then as literal saints and whatnot.

Granted, that can be said about other religions if they are taken in a more secular way, but Zen buddhists are usually way more chill about their own "beliefs". They have strayed a little too far from Mahayana Buddhism by now.

>>9155703


>how can you discount Christianity as a causal element of Western prosperity?

Because every progression made in the west towards where we are now was accomplished by either breaking away from Religion in some way or embracing humanism.

>The West would totally flop if the ghost of Christianity weren't there to hold it together.

I'm unconvinced on that front.

>Also
>peak of human civilization
>this isn't the 19th century anymore man, nor is it the zenith of Athens or Rome.

How you enjoying that computer there buddeh? How about dem modern medicine. Pretty swell if you ask me.


>>9155706

>presenting a counterargument to this trash degrades my point of view by presenting yours as though it were worthy of debate.

Well, excuse me. I'll take my trash elsewhere, sorry for trying to degrade your point of view.

>>9155759
>Because every progression made in the west towards where we are now was accomplished by either breaking away from Religion in some way or embracing humanism.
Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis. Presuming I agree with you, tension and conflict has made the West great, and in this process Christianity has played a central role.

>I'm unconvinced on that front.
Tell me where morals come from, and how society can function in their absence. And before you meme me with "just be a good person lol" try to define what Good means? And where did you come to know the Good? How does an atheist account for the existence of Goodness?

Is Goodness merely the result of social pressures? If so, why not rid ourselves of it since it is irrational? Furthermore, why did we come together as societies in the first place? To protect ourselves from threats? If we were not Good how could we have stayed together in times of peace? How can atheists feel compelled in and of themselves to do Good when it's not in their own self-interest?

>How you enjoying that computer there buddeh? How about dem modern medicine. Pretty swell if you ask me.
This is the argument of an immature intelligence.

If my computer were not necessary for me to get along in the world, I would happily do away with it. I would just as happily consort with Socrates and Pals at the tables of the money-changers as I do with Anonymous on 4chan. I am ambivalent towards modern medicine, because I do not fear death. Besides, all medicine has managed to do (besides play catch-up with the afflictions of industrialization) is to reduce infant mortality.

>>9155759
>Well, excuse me. I'll take my trash elsewhere, sorry for trying to degrade your point of view.
it's ok. we can still be friends if you want

>>9155694
>They have literal demi-gods
wtf are you on about? Are you thinking of Tibetan Buddhism?

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>>9155637
Feser go awey

>>9155812

>Presuming I agree with you, tension and conflict has made the West great, and in this process Christianity has played a central role.

Elaborate.

>Tell me where morals come from, and how society can function in their absence.

From a mix of philosophy and our natural instinct as a social species.
>If my computer were not necessary for me to get along in the world, I would happily do away with it. I would just as happily consort with Socrates and Pals at the tables of the money-changers as I do with Anonymous on 4chan. I am ambivalent towards modern medicine, because I do not fear death. Besides, all medicine has managed to do (besides play catch-up with the afflictions of industrialization) is to reduce infant mortality.

Wow, such beautiful deflection and mental gymnastics. The fact that you wouldn't mind living in Ancient Greece doesn't change the fact that our society is superior to theirs. I also suspect that you have a romanticized view of that period of time. I mean you are aware that most people weren't Aristocrats and philosophers. And that they used slaves?

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There's something I really don't get

If the existence of god can neither be proven nor disproven then why would anybody ever want god to not be real?

You get what I mean? Like why would you ever want to believe that when you die you're just gone forever and your body rots away in the earth?
Isn't it worth at least believing in an afterlife just for the sake of staying positive? Life is so much nicer when you always have something to look forward to and well, what do you have to lose really?

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>>9155893
loool Pascal go awey

>>9155893
its hard for most people to willfully delude themselves - it's actually a great matter of contention whether it's possible to lie to yourself or not

I mean, in the book he says Catholics have to eat fish on Fridays. The fact this incorrect statement made it through editing says a lot, but Hitchens is the first to admit he threw the book together quickly and really just regurgitated old Enlightenment points with his own style and humor.

That said I enjoyed the book when I read it as a teenager.

>>9155537
Religion is a useful lie needed to keep low-IQ proles engaging in socially benefical behavior.

>>9155645
Theism has an easy way out, and a hard one in.

>>9155640
>>9155645
We all know agnosticism is the easy way out.

>>9155888
>Elaborate
https://aeon.co/essays/how-did-europe-become-the-richest-part-of-the-world

>From a mix of philosophy and our natural instinct as a social species.
And what if I reject that morality? Should I be punished for not conforming to societal norms?

>Superiority as a function of technology
>Social hierarchy and slavery as absolute evils
this really doesn't merit a response.

>>9155888
Fatalism it is, then. Everything is to be regarded as meritocracy.

>>9155893
>If the existence of god can neither be proven nor disproven then why would anybody ever want god to not be real?

If you are not assured felicity after death what incentive have you to curb your material self-interest?

You have to bank on the afterlife being real or else you'll take your payout now. Time Value of Money/Expected Value

>>9156003
The hidden joke is that time is the only thing that has only the value of use. However, this twisted time is warped so that everything else is to be regarded as per its usefulness - including truth.
Of course, ideological usefulness trumps all others.

Mind will always be over matter, in reality and in fiction.

>>9155628
arguing that this is the peak of human civilization because we have like, apps, is really stupid. judging the "peak" of human civilization on technological achievement will always end with you determining the present is the peak, since technology is always accumulating

>>9156023
>always
In the event that it wasn't, we'd have lost writing. Of course, there has never ever been a time without it, so of course it has always accumulated.

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>says Christianity is bad
>by supporting an ideology that killed more people in 5 years than Christianity in 15 centuries

>>9156032
We should eradicate those who want to expand their ideological domain by violence. It's the only way.

>>9155703
>this isn't the 19th century anymore man, nor is it the zenith of Athens or Rome.

>double the lifespan
>child mortality decimated
>literacy rates at record high
>criminal offenses and homicides at their historical minimum
>war related deaths, idem
>standards of living not even kings from two centuries ago could imagine

How the fuck is the 19th century, Athens or Rome any better. Please explain.

>>9156040
Then only the Amish and the Mennonites would remain and the entire human population of the world would be religious.

>>9156041
>double the lifespan
On average, due to child mortality. If we were to count abortion, we'd be probably even lower.
>child mortality decimated
By killing all the babies and fetuses. They're not human, they couldn't even vote.
>literacy at record high
Understanding at record low. Information at its peak. Odd how it goes like this.
>crime at its lowest
1950s is long gone. Utopia. Crime doesn't obviously happen in no-go zones. Fetuses aren't human, so you can't murder them. Killing a pregnant woman is double homicide, though, because women have two bodies, one of which is 'a clump of cells' (why not both?).
>war related deaths
In millions even today. MAD is keeping us safe from WW3 at the moment. No other reason. Not a single one.
>standards of living
Stopped caring about architecture, virtues, family and civilization.

Abdul will have kids in Europe 200 years from now. You?

>>9156040
Ben Stiller pls go

>>9155537
bc hitchens is pop philosophy, and had he actually read some of the canon he was attempting to grapple with, he would have known that theoretical arguments to 'disprove' god's existence were btfo by Kant some 200 years ago, and rly driven home by kierkegaard.

read the fucking canon you pleb

>>9156062
fuck off to your contaiment board.

>>9155893
Eternity scares me plenty.

>>9156084
Show me a moment without eternity.

>>9156075
Not an argument.

>>9156086
>Show me a moment without eternity.
That doesn't mean anything.

>>9156091
Oh, but if fear is given power over eternity in this instance, is the fear not meant to be eternal?

The success of Islam proves that even the scarecrow variant of religion is better than atheism.
>produce no books
>literacy is irrelevant, as long as some hold it enough to chant old memes
>no technological advancement
>no value given to labor
>art is gimped by weird rules
200 years, and atheism will simply be remembered as yet another curse of Allah to the infidel.

>>9155537

>In all seriousness, Hitchens' roast of religion is pretty solid.

It really isn't.

t. Atheist

Fauerbach did it better

>>9156041
>>double the lifespan
war/child mortality. adult lifespan is static

>>child mortality decimated
only arguable 'improvement'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiRG_nQTvdQ

>>literacy rates at record high
which has lead to the degradation of higher learning. Most people would be better off having never touched a book.

>>criminal offenses and homicides at their historical minimum
Assuming this is true, peoples hearts haven't changed- they only fear punishment which the state is ever more capable of inflicting.

>>war related deaths, idem
soooo glad we have nuclear weapons :)
wwi wasnt that long ago my man.

>>standards of living not even kings from two centuries ago could imagine
on the backs of the third world poor! What joy! My central heating has brought me pure happiness!

>>9156086
Your post wasn't an argument either. I provided facts, you regurgitated reactionary memes you can't really back.

Feel free to believe the Average Giorgos from classic Athens had a higher """understanding""" and gave two fucks about architecture (the neo-conservative obsession with architecture as a vessel of degeneracy is fascinating though).

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>>9156125

>50% of the Western world atheist since the late 1800's
>Fedoras appear in 2010
>"Wow look at how many people are atheist because of us! I guess we're really the new, better atheists! Good job us for changing the world!"

>>9156143
I do love me some taco bell

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Theism and atheism are both comforting ideas to distract you from ackowledging that there's no universal rationality and human nature to go back on.

>>9156122
>war/child mortality. adult lifespan is static
adult lifespan isn't static, it has improved greatly .and how could it not for fucks sake. violent deaths are rarer than ever; medicine does the rest.

>only arguable 'improvement'.
I don't even know what you're trying to prove with that video, that that kid would be better off death? The improvements have been drastic for the vast majority of children who are able to reach adult life and live a normal life.

I really don't get this tactic of resorting to anecdotes when discusing massive trends.

>which has lead to the degradation of higher learning. Most people would be better off having never touched a book.
Debatable. Opinion.

>soooo glad we have nuclear weapons :)
Yes, I somewhat am too.

>wwi wasnt that long ago my man.
WWI was a lot closer to "peak of civilization" 19th century than it is to 2017, so I fail to see how this harms my argument in any way.

>on the backs of the third world poor!
What? Standards of living and wealth have improved everywhere. More than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty in the last couple decades. That doesn't mean all is good and nice but it is very much factual.

>>9155679

This is hilarious even for a borderline-satirist like Hitchens. All major interpretations of the Divine and the Human Spirit are the foundation of all Human thinking. Literary recurrence is irrelevant, as is initial occurrence. Religious texts are the lowest byproduct of Numinous experience. In fact, you could destroy them all and, across the collective Human Spirit, the things described in the texts would move one step closer to their hypostatic origin now that the frayed ends of their refraction have been cast off.

And as for the second part, what Information is he speaking of? Materialism has yet to define Matter. Rationalism has yet to define Reason. Positivism has yet to define proof. Objectivism has yet to define fact.

>>9156199
>adult lifespan isn't static, it has improved greatly .and how could it not for fucks sake. violent deaths are rarer than ever; medicine does the rest.
Suicides are higher than ever. Medicine is more needed than ever, as the business requires constant growth. Population growth has given us many diseases formerly unknown.

Dentists, however, are God's gift to Earth.

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where is your god now

>>9155893
It's not actively wanting god to not exist (although some say this is preferable) its more the lack of evidence of its existence

>>9156262
There are no atheists in a fox hole. Go out of your safe space.

>>9156032
>atheism is an ideology
>atheism is the ideology that caused that and not communism
Wew

>>9156274
Hitchens was a communist. So was his brother, they were Trotskyists. His brother, who lived in USSR in its autumn years, is now a Christian.

One was pro-war, Iraq especially. Try to guess which.

>>9156273
>no atheists in fox holes
Oh for fucks sake. Even in Hitchens autobiography he writes about an atheist soldier who contacted him you're seriously fucking delusional if you believe that shit
>safe space
Oh no you've hurt my feels oh woe is me your amazing argument has converted me

>>9155537
The New Atheists have a narrow conception of religion. The alternative to religion isn't atheism, it's idolatry. We all put our faith in something or else we would cease to go on living. Some of us devote our lives to the pursuit of wealth. Others believe science will redeem them and the human race. Similarly, there are leftists who believe "the revolution" will redeem them. There are narcissists who worship the image of themselves. Others live to get high. Some find solace in living for their children. The point is that it's impossible to not have faith in something.

>>9156282
Hitchens was I know man I've read his shit and understand his stance on Iraq. My beliefs are more in line with Peter at this point and I'm an atheist but Hitchens support for Iraq wasn't due to him being an atheist

>>9156303
>Hitchens was
One is Peter, one is Christopher.

>>9156296
USSR reversed its policy on religion due to atheists having shit battle morale.

>>9156313
>Hitchens was
I use the past tense as he is dead
>USSR reversed its policy on religion due to atheists having shit battle morale
Be that as it may the point I was making is that there are atheists who fight in war and it's delusional to say there aren't

>>9156325
>Be that as it may the point I was making is that there are atheists who fight in war and it's delusional to say there aren't
Do you take statements for their boolean values only?

>>9156336
No

>>9156348
Good. Principles of life will be broken by people. That's what free will is.

Now, I could have lived as a nihilist agnostic for as long as eternity goes, as long as I was comfortable enough. I don't know what it'd take to destabilize you and have you accept another stance to life and reality, but war is usually the one. Capiche? That's why it was written as a point. Not because there are absolutely zero atheists in a fox hole. Atheists are not unicorns.

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>it's a "19 year olds debate about the existance of God" episode

>>9155537
Atheists have to understand that religoin is only an applied model of spirituality, and spirituality is an integrel part of human experience wether you believe in God or not, so unsuprisingly there are many people who treat spirituality as an important element of their lives in any of the different common and uncommon intrepretations.

>>9156355
Fair play that was what I meant as well. I don't try to make people stop believing or having faith it's none of my business as far as I'm concerned. I doubt war would change my outlook on life or that I would last long if an international conflict broke out

>>9156199
>I don't even know what you're trying to prove with that video, that that kid would be better off death?
Yes. We intervene too much. If letting a child die is too much for your culturally governed moral sensitivities, think of all the 70+ year olds going through chemotherapy right now. Sometimes it's better to just die.

>Debatable. Opinion.
Then you concede that literacy isn't a good in and of itself.

>WWI was a lot closer to "peak of civilization" 19th century than it is to 2017, so I fail to see how this harms my argument in any way.
That's the point- it represented the collapse.

>What? Standards of living and wealth have improved everywhere. More than a billion people have been lifted out of poverty in the last couple decades. That doesn't mean all is good and nice but it is very much factual.
The increase in numbers of suffering peoples as a consequence of """development""" far outpaces increases in quality of life. The magnitude of suffering is ever-greater.

>>9156233
>Dentists, however, are God's gift to Earth.
we wouldn't need them if not for the agricultural revolution.

>>9156169
what did he mean by this?

>>9156302
basically this

>>9155640
>>9155645
>>9155982


Believing and not believing is the easy way out.

Wait till you reach Satori bitches.

>>9156416
>we wouldn't need them if not for the agricultural revolution.
That, too.

>>9156414
>I doubt war would change my outlook on life
Been to any? It's not just a chore, unless you are on the overpowered side. Say, you shoot some shepherds from a heli.

When you are against equals and people die like flies. That's when you start really appreciating the life you have. Maybe more so than that ego of yours.

I want to believe in God. There's so many things that can't be explained by science alone, and less so by the current materialistic approach to science people have (You don't have any material proof of your experiences? That means there's no God, everybody dies and it's the end and there's no higher purpose/eternity). Current society is so concerned with their material well-being they don't give a fuck about the spiritual because it's the easy way out (I can do whatever I want, my life choices don't matter because everybody dies and there's no punishment/reward in any other life).

I find that as big of a leap in faith as the one most religious people do. Maybe I need more faith and compromise.

>>9155983

>And what if I reject that morality? Should I be punished for not conforming to societal norms?

Yes. A murderer goes against the norms of society and is thus punished. I do however believe that that is not an absolute statement since I'm a big fan of John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism.


I'm also a bit ambivalent about the existence of absolute good and evil. I will however say that slavery tends to be a bit more on the evil side than the good side.

>Superiority as a function of technology

The beneficial effects of technology are hard to deny. Because of the leisure that mechanical muscles provide endless possibilities are open to us. We can travel the world and get educated. The average adult could barely read back then. A 7 year old today could beat him in a spelling bee.

>>9156459

Why do religious people think that the only two options to toggle between are theism or nihilism.

I also want to say that there's a difference in believing in god and believing in a personal god.

>>9156482
>Why do religious people think that the only two options to toggle between are theism or nihilism.
Theists derive their values and oughts, nihilists in denial take them for granted and pretend that they don't need to back anything up.
>Morality is good because the X states so
Bible says so and you say so are equivalents.

>>9156482
>why do religious
I'm not what you would exactly call "religious", maybe I was when I was a children but not currently
>the only two options to toggle between are theism or nihilism
I'm not saying they're the only two options but nihilism is so attractive because it appeals to people's egos. They're their own "god" and it makes them feel powerful. So most of the current western society chooses Nihilism as their outlook. Only when they're faced with the prospective of death (when they're old) they start to think about spirituality.

I'm guilty of that (I'm not old but I had an epiphany some months ago).

>>9155537
The Rage Against God demolished the arguments in that book.

>>9156442
It's not to do with ego and I don't mean to come across as flippant. I just don't think it would change my worldview

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>>9156509

>"I used to be an atheist, but then I saw a big scary painting!"

>>9156516
> I just don't think it would change my worldview
The reason you say that has everything to do with your ego. I'm not even the guy you're discussing with, but atheism/agnosticism caters to people egos.

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>>9156509

>>9156503
>>9156509
>They're their own "god"
>The Rage Against God
more proof that theists are incapable of thinking of atheists as genuinely atheistic

>>9156552
Arguing with authentic meat blobs is a bit like shadow boxing.

To me, the problem with new atheism isn't that its criticisms on religion aren't valid (many of them absolutely are), the problem is that it never suggested what to replace religion with, which means that new atheism was inevitably going to be bogged down and stagnate or be taken over by zealots who do offer an alternative vision (in this case, feminists/SJWs).

This means that at best, you'll be stuck with Christianity-lite, or some other derivative of some earlier worldview, and at worst, your worldview will completely devolve in full blown nihilism which is even worse than the very thing you tried to remove

>>9156552
nobody is genuinely atheistic. Atheism is a leap in faith. Atheists take science as their religion, as a form of dogma. Materialism is their outlook.

Or are you going to tell me "There's no God. You die and there's nothing afterwards. There's no higher end, purpose or idea for human beings and consciousness" is not a belief that requires a big ass leap of faith?

>>9156569
even more proof
tell me more about how the lack of religion is a religion and how the lack of belief in a god is belief in a god

>>9155537
>>9155893

In mathematics and philosophy, there is no such thing as universal truth to a statement. Every theory must start with a list of unprovable axioms, and then the truth of statements is determined in context with these axioms.

For example, the statement "the angles of a triangle sum to 180 degrees" is true if you start from Euclid's axioms of geometry, but not if you consider a different set of axioms.

Religion is just philosophy starting with some version of the axiom that states "God exists". Debating the truth or falsity of this axiom is pointless, since it is simply assumed to be true.

In mathematics there was a large debate over an axiom of set theory, the Axiom of Choice, regarding whether or not it should be included in our standard model of set theory. The Axiom of Choice was proven to be logically independent from the rest of the axioms of set theory, which means we really do have to assume it to be true if we want to use it (it doesn't follow logically from the other axioms). It turns out that this axiom is so useful that almost all mathematicians DO accept it, although there are some who try to proceed without it.

The existence of God is an axiom independent from science, and so you can either accept or deny it. Depends on what you believe, and which outlook is most useful to you. Both stances lead to valid, logically sound philosophies.

>>9156579
Is it not written in your law, ye are gods?

>>9156579
You're claiming that there are genuine atheists. Nope, there are not any genuine atheists and I say that as a former atheist. Everybody believes in something. Be it a dogmatic belief in science, the State or money.

>>9156582
Nihilism is not logical and sound. It appeals to people's egos but nothing else.

>>9156465
>The beneficial effects of technology are hard to deny. Because of the leisure that mechanical muscles provide endless possibilities are open to us. We can travel the world and get educated. The average adult could barely read back then. A 7 year old today could beat him in a spelling bee.
Socrates never left Athens, and Kant never traveled away from Konisberg. I similarly fail to see a relationship between spelling and quality of life, except insofar as technological "progress" has forced on us the need to spell to get along in everyday life.

>Yes. A murderer goes against the norms of society and is thus punished. I do however believe that that is not an absolute statement since I'm a big fan of John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism.

>I will however say that slavery tends to be a bit more on the evil side than the good side.

Suppose I am not a murderer, I only want to live self-interestedly and free myself from society. Why should I not be able to purchase a piece of property in the middle of nowhere and declare myself its sovereign? If I am not permitted to do this, am I thus a slave of the State? What justifies this?

If morals are dictated by our nature, can our nature perpetuate a moral wrong?

Is the state a higher authority than the self?

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>>9156569
>There is nothing after you die
>Leap of faith
Well I've never died and I've never had the chance to talk to someone after they died so assuming anything about the post-death experience is a "leap of faith."

Atheists are just people saying that the theists are making a blind leap of faith and given the immeasurable alternative possibilities assuming they are wrong. Why is this so difficult for theists to grasp?

>>9156459

>You don't have any material proof of your experiences? That means there's no God, everybody dies and it's the end and there's no higher purpose/eternity

This borders the slippery slope fallacy. The reason people don't believe in a personal god anymore and are turning away from religion, at least the Abrahamic religions, is because empirical evidence contradicts their claims and gives other explanations. Explanations that are based on evidence, not faith.

Religions have been doing damage control recently like the catholic church acknowledging evolution but as people get more educated start looking at other options.


>Current society is so concerned with their material well-being they don't give a fuck about the spiritual because it's the easy way out (I can do whatever I want, my life choices don't matter because everybody dies and there's no punishment/reward in any other life).

People don't care about the spiritual because they see no evidence of its existence. Not because of their ego. I also think that drinking the cool-aid and deluding yourself into believing that there's an after-life where good people get rewards and bad people get punishment is the "easy way out". Instead of asking yourself that hard questions, you simply deflect everything to a third-party that you claim has all the answers and solutions.

>>9156609
>assuming

>>9156609
>>There is nothing after you die
>>Leap of faith
>Well I've never died and I've never had the chance to talk to someone after they died so assuming anything about the post-death experience is a "leap of faith."
If you are random probability product in endless world, you'd be endless, as it was possible to produce you. You never die. You just repeat.
This world would be your hell. You'd never know.

>>9156552
show me the man whose genuine thought is not at odds with determinism

>>9156609
>Atheists are just people saying that the theists are making a blind leap of faith given the immeasurable alternative possibilities assuming they are wrong. Why is this so difficult for theists to grasp?

Because what you're describing is the outlook agnostics have, not the one atheists have. Atheists DENY the existence of God, and fall in the same kind of "trap" they accuse the religious to fall into.

>>9156616
Accepting that there's a higher purpose and a higher being infinitely more powerful than you will ever be is not the easy way out. It's scary as fuck. You make the assumption that religious people think of God as the only answer. Yeah, ultimately God is the answer to everything on this world but it's intellectually dishonest to not keep pursuing knowledge and think the only life that matters if the afterlife. The people that do that are not any different from atheists.

>>9156623
>Comment saying atheists are assuming theists are wrong
>Assuming theists are wrong is the outlook that agnostics have
You have to be 18 to browse this website buddy.

>>9156593
>Nope, there are not any genuine atheists and I say that as a former atheist. Everybody believes in something.
Atheism isn't the lack of belief in anything.

>>9156593

Where did Nihilism come into play?

>>9156619
Irrelevant, but possible. There's probably a book about this somewhere.

>>9156636
Is anything worth doing? If your statements make it worthwhile, what happens when you won't be making statements again?

>>9156621
Determinism is a separate issue, and I suspect you'd insist that a person "implicitly" or "pragmatically" accepts indeterminism even if their explicit system of beliefs is built around its negation

>>9156041
correlation != causation. all of those advancements can coexist with the presence of religion.

>>9156632
>Atheism isn't the lack of belief in anything
In current atheism? Try to say that you think God doesn't exist. People will clap and congratulate you. Then follow up by saying that you believe that there's an afterlife and a higher meaning. You will be met with ridicule from the people that were applauding you.

>>9156631
You said that atheists are people that assume religious people are wrong because of the infinite possibilities after death. That outlook is agnostic. Atheism denies the possibility of God, therefore if you even consider the possibility of there being a God you're not a true atheist.

>>9156636
because that's the only philosophy that comes as a result from not following a belief in God.

>>9156632
>>9156593
> I say that as a former atheist
What is with this fucking tactic? If you never actually disbelieved in God and you only "hated" him, you weren't an atheist full stop. Stop trying to pretend to be retroactively representative of us.

>>9156592
>Is it not written in your law, ye are gods?
No, it isn't. Way to use religious scripture to try to understand irreligion.

>>9156659
> If you never actually disbelieved in God
I disbelieved in God but immediately I realized how hypocritical is to be an atheist but condemn the religious when I was falling into the same trap.

>>9156658
>Atheism denies the possibility of God, therefore if you even consider the possibility of there being a God you're not a true atheist.
Not him, but I think that faith is deeper than cognition. The underlying patterns and world view are so deeply intertwined that the atheists render themselves blind to many things with their claims.

What makes losing worse than winning? Truth worse than false?

>>9156658
>Try to say that you think God doesn't exist. People will clap and congratulate you. Then follow up by saying that you believe that there's an afterlife and a higher meaning. You will be met with ridicule from the people that were applauding you.
Its almost as if beliefs come in groups. The fact that atheism is correlated with other certain beliefs (or lacks thereof) does not render the atheist a universal skeptic, which, of course, doesn't exist.

>>9156631
Poorly worded statements leads to misshapen answers.

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>>9156459
Read the Summa Theologica for actual arguments for the existence of God.

>>9156602

>Socrates never left Athens

Not like he had much choice. Where would he have gone? The world wasn't as developed at it is now.

>Kant never traveled away from Konisberg

That's true. People can live modest lives and be happy. But people have options now. You used to be born in a position and remain there with very few exceptions. Now people can be whatever they chose to be and go where ever they choose to go. I could book a flight right now and be in China within 2 days. With a few clicks, I have access to knowledge from all over the world.

I think it's hard to deny that people, in developed countries at least, have better qualities of life. They have more freedom and can live the way kings of olden days could only dream of.

>Suppose I am not a murderer, I only want to live self-interestedly and free myself from society. Why should I not be able to purchase a piece of property in the middle of nowhere and declare myself its sovereign? If I am not permitted to do this, am I thus a slave of the State?

Like I said, I'm a fan of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. I think that you should be able to do whatever you want as long as it creates the greater prosperity of happiness and the dulls the suffering of sentient beings.

>>9156668
Then you should realize how hypocritical it is to be a theist but condemn the irreligious when you are falling into the same trap.

>>9155537
>In all seriousness, Hitchens' roast of religion is pretty solid. How can theists even respond to that? I have never seen an answer to atheism a part from ad hominem in the form of fedora memes.
>Is this return of religion just a consequence of the neo-conservative movement who in itself is just an inevitable contrarian answer to hardcore feminist and leftist taking it too far or is there anything of substance behind it?
Top reddit

>>9156686
>better
More is not better. Given the amount of information, you'd think this was obvious by now.

Well, eating is a chore to me.

>>9156658
That's not what was posted.
>Atheists are just people assuming that theists are wrong
Assuming that god does not exist IS denying his existence. Atheists say that theists are making a foolish leap of faith and their belief/disbelief in whatever they consider alternatives are a result of that assumption.

Agnosticism is a ballhair away it's the same thing but without assuming that theists are wrong.

>>9156541
I'm not an atheist because of an ego trust me if you knew me you'd know that. I matter to a very small amount of people who I also care about when I die I will b forgotten almost instantly I'm not an atheist due some ego. You're deluding yourself if you think all atheists have some inflated sense of self worth. From the way you speak about atheists you seem like a cunt with a superiority complex

>>9156696

>ahahhahah le atheist. le reddit

>>9156686
>Like I said, I'm a fan of John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism. I think that you should be able to do whatever you want as long as it creates the greater prosperity of happiness and the dulls the suffering of sentient beings.

So let's say I'm a doctor, and I am caring for five strapping young men who need immediate organ transplants in order to survive.

I select you as an unwilling donor, kill you, and accordingly save all of their lives.

Is there anything wrong with this?

>>9156704
Shaming won't work this way.

>>9156703
>I'm an atheist because of ego
>I think I will cease to exist forever after a brief imperfect existence and not live in eternal bliss as one of the elect of the supreme being because of EGO

>>9156702

>Assuming that Godzilla does not exist IS denying his existence. Atheists say that theists are making a foolish leap of faith and their belief/disbelief in whatever they consider alternatives are a result of that assumption.

FTFY

>>9156679
Thank you.
>>9156672
so you're admitting that true atheism doesn't exist?
>>9156695
I'm not falling into the same trap because atheistic beliefs stem from arrogance.

>>9156711
>commenting on Mill without reading him

>>9156720
Hey thanks friendo.

>>9156720
Godzilla does exist.

>>9156724

>so you're admitting that true atheism doesn't exist?

I'm "admitting" that atheism is not equivalent to universal skepticism.

>I'm not falling into the same trap because atheistic beliefs stem from arrogance.
hypocrite

>>9156720
the fact that you consider the concept of God interchangeable with Godzilla shows me you don't take this seriously.

>>9156719
who even said that there are few elected by God? Who even said that God has elected them? You seem to confuse theism with a belief in predestination.

>>9156736
>>I'm not falling into the same trap because atheistic beliefs stem from arrogance.
>hypocrite
Not really. Leap of faith is known and taken. Arrogance just assumed by its nature.

Not saying there are no arrogant theists. However, that is beside the point.

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>>9156224

guys...

>>9156729
I'm not commenting on Mill, I'm commenting on Anon's stated beliefs.

>>9156719
You're accusing me of having an ego and yet you think the universe was made with you in mind and not that your existence is a by product of its natural processes. Nice projection mate

>>9156748
I was actually agreeing with you, construing your position in a way that made atheism and egoism look like a preposterous combination.

>>9156711

If it creates the greater happiness and the least pain then no. There's nothing wrong with it. The reason we don't do that is that people would be scared shitless of getting randomly selected and that would create more pain than happiness.

>>9156736
there are arrogant theists. But the nature of the leap of faith made by atheists is arrogant.

>My perspective is the only one that ultimately matters in this world
>I am the one that builds his own sense of morality and ethics

The atheistic outlook is appealing to so many people because it gives them power.

>>9156741
So if an atheist admits that their belief system involves a leap of faith, you'll accept that it's on par with yours?

>>9156742
>>9156224
I don't quite agree with your irrelevant category, but I agree in that they are of lower priority.

You're getting somewhere. Keep digging.

>>9156750
Sorry I thought you were the other person and I misinterpreted your intention

>>9156711
>>9156729
if you believe in anything unchanging and immutable (this would include the supposed 'natural right to life'): Welcome to Plato's world of the Forms, and welcome to Christianity.

>>9155679
As a scientist, they WOULD come back.
People would re-derive freefall as (1/2)*gt, for example. Science measures reality. So long as reality is unchanged, scientific findings would ultimately not change, only the steps needed to get there.

Religion, if forced to reform, would never recreate Jesus or Muhammad stories.

>>9156763
It's cool, I gotcha.

>>9156758
No. All leaps are not equal. Watch a fail compilation, that's how I see atheism. In slow motion. They don't even know that they are filmed.

I don't even like watching it.

>>9156765
I don't. Can't speak for the original utilitarian anon. I will say, though, that utilitarians opposite the idea of natural rights. Bentham called it "nonsense upon stilts."

>>9156769
hypocrite

>>9156757
That's not the only outlook an atheist can have though

>>9156774
*oppose

>>9156766
nice try Satan but no, it wouldn't come back. Current science is a product of a philosophy that's a product of centuries of Christian influence in the world. Descartes wouldn't have thought of the Scientific Method if it wasn't for the centuries of build-up.

Oh, yeah, I forgot, you're one of those that think that philosophy is for potheads and forget how the current way we do science is a product of it.

>>9156777
I'm a different anon. It is not arrogance if you know something. Arrogance is what follows when you look at others.
God is within.

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God is irrelevent. Period.
Whether or not God exists makes no difference because the supernatural, by definition, can have no impact on our lives. Else we'd be able to measure that influence and the phenomenon would cease to be supernatural, and become merely natural.

Best case theistic scenario: There is a God but he doesn't do shit and shows no signs of himself.
Worst case scenario: There is no God and it doesn't matter because God doesn't have an influence on the world to begin with.

Plus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

>>9156788
The fact that we observe is a measurement in supernatural.

>>9156765

I don't believe in human rights beyond their use as tools to promote the prosperity of happiness.

>>9156786
What prevents the atheist from having the exact same outlook you have, then, but reversed? And what makes you know you're more justified than them in that outlook? You're a lowly human, only God knows the truth of things, right?

>>9156788
>Pepe
>Baby atheist's first criticism

You know that the God of the gaps wasn't even created by atheists, right? It was created by theists to counter the hypocrisy behind conflating God and science.

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>>9156686
>>9156711
>>9156756
Utilitarianism is pretty great until you're the utility.

Ultimately someone has to make the decision of what brings the most "prosperity" and "happiness" for the least "pain" which are all very nice and specific terms that we can all agree on the meaning of. Weirdly the people who wind up in charge making these utilitarian decisions tend to make choices that make them very happy and prosperous.

>>9156785
This is retarded. You're claiming that because some early science was done by theists, because literally everyone used to be theistic, that all of science is owed somehow to theism?

Why aren't you Jewish? If you're a Christian or Muslim you MUST admit that your religion is based on Judaism and thus Judaism is the answer because without it there would be no Christianity or Islam.

And you're not even on topic. You're changing the proposition. The hypothetical was that "IF SCIENCE WERE DELETED FROM HISTORY IT WOULD BE RECREATED WITH THE SAME FINDINGS IT HAS NOW" and you said "nu-uh because science is based on religion!" But nobody said religion was also destroyed in this hypothetical. Reading it purely, all of the things you claim religion did to support science would still be there for science to build on, so science absolutely would grow back to its current state.

But, again, cut away religion and wait for it to grow back and you will not get Christianity, Hinduism, etc.

>>9156794
>What prevents the atheist from having the exact same outlook you have, then, but reversed?
The fact that they are absurdly wrong about everything.

Why is truth better than falsehood? When atheists can offer me an answer that actually puts truth in a pedestal, I'll grant them an apology, as I was unable to figure it out.

>>9156794
the mere fact that they deny the existence of God is what prevents them from having the same outlook. No atheistic outlook has ever derived from humility. Atheists denounce humility.

>>9156777
a generous indictment on your part, considering the type of character needed for a person to elicit pleasure from another's pain and misfortune and then deny any aesthetic value as well

>>9156756
So essentially you believe that the object of life is the pursuit of happiness? Your beliefs are in accordance with those of Plato and Augustine.

Now the only question left to ask is how one comes to obtain happiness. What if you were to find that to live in accordance with utilitarian principles such that all of your actions maximized social welfare, was to live in accordance with the Scriptures?

>>9156774
>>9156790
"Happiness" is likewise unchanging and immutable.

>>9156807
>in a pedestal
on* a pedestal. Thinking two lines at once results in overlap. Cur

>>9156806
Tangentially related: have any of you fellas read Canticle for Leibowitz? Really interesting combination of religion (Catholicism) and the rebuilding of science after nuclear cataclysm.

>>9156806
>you're claiming that because some early science was done by theists
The way science is done is a product of the Christian civilization. Why is that Descartes was the guy that specifically came up with the foundation of current science and not an atheistic guy.

The worst part is that you keep denying that the way we do science is a product of philosophy. Maths wouldn't even be the same if we were to erase every previous knowledge. I love how atheists always think of philosophy as some kind of bullshit.

>>9156807
>>9156809
>>9156811
hypocrites, you pretend to have knowledge only God could have

>>9156812
I'm not a utilitarian. I'm not the "happiness" guy either. Although of course any concept requires a falsificatory semblance of stasis and generality in the phenomena it covers.

>>9156812
*note that I'm basing this assumption-
>So essentially you believe that the object of life is the pursuit of happiness?
-on a hypothetical discussion we had, where I asked whether or not it was wrong to kill an innocent person if it brought me happiness, to which you responded "Yes, it is." You would make the same point about people living in fear reducing the social welfare, ultimately leading us to the conclusion that the correct course of human action is the one that
>maximizes social welfare
rather than one's own private utility.

>>9156826
>hypocrites, you pretend to have knowledge only God could have
The Kingdom of God is within us. We asked such knowledge from God, and He granted us.

What makes pretending worse than being?

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>>9156789
No it's not. Go back to Twitter, Jaden Smith.

Photons hitting the back of our eyes trigger neurological impulses that travel to the brain and get processed into vision.
Vibrations in the air move tympanic membranes in our ears that get translated into hearing.

Our senses are physically quantifiable and well understood, as are the various information sources they respond to, like light, sound, temperature, pressure, etc.

We even have a good idea of how these senses evolved by comparing ourselves to hundreds of other species of life on Earth.

Nothing supernatural going on.

>>9156800
>doesn't acknowledge a single point
Don't think I didn't notice that you're still powerless to respond here.

If God exists, why did he conveniently stop providing proof when we developed the technology to record that proof?

If God exists, why does science keep proving that things we used to say He controlled is actually just nature?

If God exists, why is the only domain left for him some vague "pre-big-bang" Prime Mover argument? God has literally been forced to retreat to BEFORE TIME AND REALITY EXISTED because science has refined itself to the point that virtually everything else about our existence is understood by modern science.

>>9156834
>We asked such knowledge from God, and He granted us.
How do you know he granted it? Do you know the mind of God? Is your human judgment infallible?

>>9156837
>Photons hitting the back of our eyes trigger neurological impulses that travel to the brain and get processed into vision.
Stuff moves in brain, you get information. What is (you) in this case? Dun dun duun.

>>9156842
the organism in question

>>9156839
>Do you know the mind of God?
I am His projection, although fractured, still functional enough.

>>9156826
You know this might be the only 4chan thread I've ever been in that would be more interesting with IDs. You can identify a few repeat posters clearly but a lot of it is murky and some of the argument has been surprisingly good for a religion debate.

>>9156806
tl:dr answer
Science would be the same because it's built up on philosophy that's a product of religion.

Religion wouldn't be the same because it's the "factory" that produced science.

Take a bunch of chocolates produced by a machine. If you were to erase the machine making the chocolates you wouldn't reproduce the machine exactly the same. If you were to erase the chocolates then you can make more with the machine.

The argument is intellectually dishonest because science is a product of religion.

>>9156844
Either you have no real sense of existence (cognition) or you fear yourself. Which is it?
Who is the one that gains all this knowledge? The one who sees the image of brain? If it is not you, it is I alone.

>>9156823
Prove literally any of that shit and THEN prove why the fuck it matters!

You're making an argument from tradition, or history, or some other such bullshit.

Prove that 1+1 would not equal 2 without religion, and you're not allowed to go "hurr well we might count one of something with the symbol '2' and two of something with the symbol '1' therefore '2+2=1' might be how math would look!" Which is a semantic argument that ignores that the core concepts are the same.

Then prove how theism, which held a monopoly on every sphere of life in the dark ages, somehow is justified in modern times and gets a pass on its bullshit now that we KNOW it's 99% likely to be bullshit.

You're not supporting your claim at all. What the fuck does theism and early philosophy have to do with the fact that our models of reality right now show that the models created by theism and philosophy 1000 years ago were laughably incorrect? Are they RETROACTIVELY correct despite all evidence because modern models of reality made by science might not exist had those theistic models of 1017AD not been created?

>>9156847
It's actually quite fun and strange to be mired in collective anonymity like this. There's an amorphous blob of Christianity and one of atheism and occasionally a limb will emerge and lash at the other blob. Really uncanny experience.

>>9156862
>Prove that 1+1 would not equal 2 without religion
Math was a religion and they banned square of 2.

>>9156837
God isn't there to satisfy the whims of lesser beings.

>If God exists, why does science keep proving that things we used to say He controlled is actually just nature?

Nature is an extension of God. You keep thinking that theists find God under every action on this Earth. His inspiration exists, but he doesn't guide everything. Otherwise there's no free will.

>>9156842
"You" is the sum of the patterns of electricity generated by the brain in question.
Cut part out, and a person can lose bits of personality and memory. Because souls aren't real, therefore damage to the physical brain alters a person's thoughts and identity fundamentally.

You shot yourself in the foot.

>>9156858
The self is the organism in question, or nothing at all. You fell for the Cartesian meme. First-person =/= nonphysical. What is missed in objective psychology and neuroscience is the having of the brain in question, which can't, of course, be had by the people studying it from the outside.

>>9156851
This is pure bullshit.
Science is not a religion. It's a body of evidence and theory. Get rid of SCIENCE AND RELIGION BOTH and science would come back 100% because gravity would be the same, electricity would be the same, nuclear physics would be the same, etc. Religion would not come back because religion is fairy tales unique to the times, places, and peoples who create them.

>>9156862
>Prove that 1 + 1 would not equal 2 without religion
You do know that Math is a form of religion, right? You accept "dogmas" or "axiomas" as they're known in Math. If you were to erase "religion" you would need to erase Maths as they're currently known too.

>>9156877

>Because Robert De Niros aren't real, therefore damage to the physical television alters an actor's appearance and identity fundamentally

>>9156801

Yep that's always been the biggest problem with utilitarianism. In theory it's very nice but its application is rather tricky.

>>9156887
I told you, religious people are incapable of understanding the irreligious without making them conform to the model of religion.

>>9156877
>"You" is the sum of the patterns of electricity generated by the brain in question.
Who found that out? How?

>"Virtual brain in a jar"
>simulated reality
You have no way to prove that the brain is not an antennae.

Go see your monitor, or a radio. Listen to somebody speaking through (they have audio output most of the times, don't get stuck on this one).
Now damage the monitor or radio. Did you damage the speaker? But if you didn't, why is the speech blurry or dysfunctional?

>>9156889
>can't into deductivism

>>9156887
>It's a body of evidence and theory.
Why is evidence needed? Provide evidence and a theory to prove your point of view.

Prove logic without resorting to circular reasoning. Ie. Logic.

>>9156887
Science is not a religion, IT IS A PRODUCT OF RELIGION. Holy shit, this is Philosophy 101. Philosophy is the mother of science. Do you think Philosophy would be the same without Religion? Religion and Philosophy feed each other while Science is a much lesser being.

>>9156874
Then refer back to my first point: GOD IS IRRELEVANT. If God does nothing, if God is nothing but nature, then the theory of God is useless and baseless and Occam's Razor then applies and you might as well cut God out of the equation.

Why must God create Nature? Why can't Nature just create Nature if God can do it? If God really is so pointless as you imply, why posit that God existed, and Nature is a facet of God, when you could just say Nature exists and that's reality?

Calling Nature God isn't even a theistic argument. Plenty of Atheists refer to the sum of the universe, of reality, of nature, as "God" when they do use the term.To qualify as a theistic argument you typically have to have some kind of will or motive or activity from the deity in question.

>>9156900
give up the dream of epistemic foundationalism and use the longstanding finely honed institution for investigating the world (i.e., science) as is
>read Quine

>>9156904
Why is your point relevant?

Oh, but it is because we are obliged to help you.

>>9155547
I would say revise "religion" with theism, and you are 100% correct. The extent of knowledge and power of God is disputed, in fact the actual amount of gods is disputed as well. In my honest opinion there is God and then there are angels and demons below God. Many people confuse God with those directly below him, either due to misconceptions and deceit. I believe God is just a singularity point of all sapience or conscience. I think the architect or architect of the universe may be God, but it may be God alongside angels or other gods.

I think this idea of an omnipotent, omniscient presence in the universe as God is flawed. I don't think the same god asking for ritual sacrifice and blood libel is the same as God.

>>9156902
>my idiosyncratics beliefs about the role of philosophy are philosophy 101
hmm

>>9156906
He's the one worshiping evidence. I can see the trees despite reading about them.

>>9156904
So you're falling into the traps of utilitarianism. Why is that God needs to be useful for you on this existence?

You're clearly falling into the same trap the edgy teenager falls into

"God doesn't exist because if he did that girl would've accepted to be my girlfriend and suffering wouldn't exist!"

>Why can't Nature just create Nature if God can do it?
Because Nature is not self-sufficient as God is

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>>9156865

It's great isn't it? Nobody knows who is whom?. Some people drop out and drop into the conversation and nobody notices.

Quite surreal.

>>9156915
Eh, I guess my advice was aimed at the one you're replying to. Any scientistic atheist worth their intellectual salt needs to abandon epistemological foundationalism on pain of the problem of induction.

>>9156914
so you're telling me that if atheism was the dominant belief in Europe for centuries instead of Christianism, the way we do science would be the same? Your leap of faith is hypocritical as fuck.

>>9156896
>Who found that out? How?
EEGs, MRIs, brain dissections, etc. Neuroscience is growing by leaps and bounds. We can now generate vague pictures from reading the energy storm going on in a person's brain in some experiments. iirc they showed people a picture of, say, an elephant and had them look at it for a while, and a computer algorithm that had been tuned to their visual processing center produced a vague shadow of the picture just reading 1's and 0's from firing synapses.

>You have no way to prove that the brain is not an antennae.
You have no way to prove it is. It's a pointless, masturbatory exercise. So what if it is? What changes? How does it influence our lives?
Oh right, nothing changes. Our circumstances are exactly the same, in practical terms, whether we live in a Matrix or not. The only logical course of action is to proceed as normal until a single shred of evidence is discovered that indicates this may be true, or that there's something we can do about it.

>Go see your monitor, or a radio.
You have zero evidence for this, but we have robust evidence to the contrary. Just because a radio's speaker is broken doesn't mean it's not getting the full signal. We can still open up the radio and test it and see that it's getting the signal. When the brain is damaged, it's not doing any of that. If the brain were just a conduit for some supernatural soul, memory loss would not happen when part of the brain was lost. Why would those memories be lost if they weren't stored on the part of the brain that was damaged?

>>9155943
>theists are low-IQ
>Neils Bohr is a theist

choose

>>9156929
not the guy you were originally replying to, I'm making fun of your claim that this is phil 101. They don't teach you substantial theses about cultural history as facts in phil 101.

>>9156889
"hurr everything we know in existence is an assumption therefore my useless theology is just as valid as rigorous science and math, which has been confirmed by logic and by empirical observation"

Do you even realize how pathetic that sounds?
By that logic the homeless schizophrenic who hallucinates demonic teletubbies murdering everyone he meets has just as valid a worldview as you. Is that how you want to go through life? Acknowledging that the hallucinations of the mentally ill and drug addicted are just as "true" as your own?

>>9156935
>>Who found that out? How?
>EEGs, MRIs, brain dissections, etc.
Were found by an empty category? Who sees those images?
Real birds eat real birds, despite fulfilling an economic model in doing so. EEG does the same for brain chemistry. There is a real person truly existing. Do you not get it?
Maps and models are not the real thing. All we see is maps and models, we are the real deal. Or if you are not, I am. At the very least.

Brains grow until you hit 24.

>>9156941
It was only a figure of speech. I'm not from USA but my first and only course of Philosophy in Biologics taught me a lot about how the way we currently do science is ultimately a product of faith and centuries of Christianism.

>>9156955
avoiding >>9156881

>>9156889
You seem to be under the impression that religion is a postulate for science. To be honest i'm not sure if you're trying to claim that religion created the sciences and they are therefore a form of religion or if you're trying to say that any form of belief in something is a religion. Both are clearly bullshit.

"Math is a form of religion" can be disproved by any good dictionary.

>>9156963
why are you pronouncing on a field you know nothing about?

>>9156900
>philosophy 101 kids are still this bitter at STEM
If you don't acknowledge that empiricism and observation are the single most effective way of understanding reality you're living in a fantasy world and need to get off the computer. The computer that science made. The internet that science made. The electricity that science harnessed by discovering the electron and forging high-strength cables that span continents to provide power from colossal power plants to your shitty home.

You owe everything to science. If that's not enough proof, throw away ally your technology, including your clothes, including your food grown with modern agricultural technology, and go be alone in the wilderness and rediscover reality without the massive support of scientific understanding to prop your dumb ass up and spoonfeed you.

>>9156902
Science is inarguably the greatest part of philosophy. Philosophy and religion are about understand and comprehension. Science is the single most effective tool ever devised for comprehension and understanding.

Science makes religion obsolete, and it'll make philosophy obsolete within the next 200 years as neuroscience and AI continue to explode.

You're still not answering my points. Just going in circles.

>>9156964
>>9156881
Who observes the science, if observer is subservient to its models? The models! Nah. It's still the observer.

We make patterns, we use patterns. Or I do.

>>9156945
You're deviating too much from the original argument and I don't understand why.

The way we do Math currently and the philosophy behind that is a product of western civilization, a civilization built upon the foundation of religion. There's a reason the biggest and most revolutionary thinkers were religious.

>>9156971
>If you don't acknowledge that empiricism and observation are the single most effective way of understanding
Define understanding. Models work, despite having real beings understand them. Curious, I know.

>>9156971
>Science has made religion obsolete and is going to make philosophy and deeper meaning obsolete.
You know, this seems quite possible but I can see why people wouldn't want to believe it.

>>9156976

Because it was the norm? Some of them would've suffered persecution had they not fit that norm

Dear atheists, if you are not the observers of reality, you are patterns in my observation. "Your" arguments are against you. Not me or God.

>>9156973
The models are models of reality. The observer exists in reality. The models approximate the workings of reality. The general laws of science, if true, describe the general workings of reality. The fact that we have theories that generate accurate predictions about the world does not imply that the general laws corresponding described by those theories only actually even within those theories. The map is not the territory.

>>9156992
*that the general laws corresponding to/described by those theories only actually exist within those theories

>>9156992
>The models approximate the workings of reality.
Or they give tools for us to use. The brain gives us very little of its endless bureaucracy.

>>9156971
I love how none of you nihilists can counter the original argument "Without religion, science as it currently exists wouldn't be" and how the question originally made was a loaded question.

Instead you resort to nihilism "philosophy won't matter in the following centuries". So smart.

>>9156907
>Can't articulate a response, better pull out another philosophy 101 question

Try again.

>>9156920
>Why is that God needs to be useful for you on this existence?
God doesn't. God just has to do something, anything, to justify inclusion in our theoretical models. Anything with no evidence and no function is either nonexistent or irrelevent to the models.

However, God MUST be useful to a theist who believes in a benevolent God. So for them much moreso than me, God must act to justify belief.

>Because Nature is not self-sufficient as God is
Why not? What do you know about nature? All you know of nature is what science has discovered for you. And based on that, we know that nature is literally ALL there is. So how is it not God that fails to be self-sufficient? If humans stop believing in nature or science, the universe is still there! The Earth keeps spinning, stars keep burning, spacetime keeps expanding. If everyone stopped thinking about God at all he'd disappear overnight. There would be not one sign of him. Because God is a human creation, while nature is all of existence.

So nature is the ultimate self-sufficient force that we know of, and God is, again, irrelevent.

>>9156998
>>9156998
nobody cares about a contingent historical claim

>>9156988
>some of them would've suffered persecution
Einstein would've suffered persecution? He was never an atheist. Descartes would've faced persecution? Stop thinking that Galileo was the norm

>>9156999
>Can't
We are not machines for you to use. It tends to be "won't".

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>>9156976
>There's a reason the biggest and most revolutionary thinkers were religious
It wouldn't happen to be because more than 90% of the population was religious?

>Modern math is a product of western civilization which was built on religion making math a product of religion
I have no idea why this would make math a form of religion as opposed to a product of it. I shit out food that I ate. I produce the shit, but the shit is not a form of me. This may be different for you though, so perhaps that's where this disagreement is coming from.

>>9157002
Nobody cares because society has indoctrinated people into thinking that philosophy doesn't matter, that the Middle Ages were a bastion of ignorance and that the only thing that matters is the material reality.

Do better tools give edge over lesser reality? I'd say so.

That's why barbarian brutes win nihilists. Both are fighting the same people.

>>9157006
Einstein was a Spinozist
>I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings
For most Christians, this is tantamount to atheism. And Spinoza was treated as such. He would have been persecuted if he was in an earlier time.

>>9156837
explain Thomas Campbell's Theory of Everything as it relates to probability and observation.

>>9157020
nobody cares about a contingent historical claim because they're indoctrinated into thinking that the discipline that deals with the non-contingent non-historical doesn't matter?

>>9157006

Had Descartes claimed that god didn't exist, it's my guest that he would have been victim of some form of persecution.

Einstein rejected the idea of a personal god though.

>>9157029
And most Christians are wrong. I've already said it, God is so supreme he doesn't or shouldn't need to care about us. Yet he does. Not in the intrusive way most Christians think.

>>9156955
We have measurable, quantifiable data that is the same regardless of whether a human or a machine looks at it. And indeed a machine HAS recognized many of the patterns of visual reasoning and managed to reproduce some of an image based on the patterns the image generated in a person's brain.

You're also still ignoring 90% of the point.

>>9156976
>You're deviating too much from the original argument and I don't understand why.
Read: "Shit, I'm at a loss, time to move the goalposts."


>The way we do Math currently and the philosophy behind that is a product of western civilization,
False. Even non-human animals can count. Modern counting systems can be traced back to pre-Western civilization. Basic math predates Western philosophy. A lot of basic geometry and algebra has nothing to do with religion as well. You have not proven any of your claims.

>a civilization built upon the foundation of religion.
Or religion is a parasite that grow alongside civilization as a means of social support and social control. Either way, so what?

>There's a reason the biggest and most revolutionary thinkers were religious.
A) Argument from authority/tradition/whatever. A lot of revolutionary thinkers were also racist! Many owned slaved! Is racism and slavery ok now?
B) Times change. It's more reasonable to believe in God the less facts you have, so it makes sense for people from a time before modern meteorology to think God created lightning. So what?

>>9156978
>Define understanding.
"Hurr, if I keep asking philosophy 101 questions like 'define literally every single word you used in that sentence, then logically prove every single word, they'll eventually dismiss me as a moron and that will mean I win!"

>>9156984
Because science is hard. Much harder than philosophy or theism. Word games and daydreams have nothing on quantum physics or relativistic motion or even just basic Newtonian motion. But some posers always want to pretend that they're on the same level as the people pushing the boundaries of our understanding of reality:
https://youtu.be/OzrHwDOlTt8

>>9157042
The objectionable part of Spinozism is not that God reveals himself in nature, but that he *is* nature (qua natura naturans), and nothing more. I think it's pretty much dogma in most forms of Christianity that God is above/outside nature, or at least is not exhausted by it.

>>9157060
slight correction: god is both natura naturans and natura naturata in spinoza
do christians have any notion of a passive form of god?

>>9157059
>We have measurable, quantifiable data that is the same regardless of whether a human or a machine looks at it.

https://youtu.be/MbkRU0BfIMc?t=2m45s

I haven't studied the field, but this aligns with my intuition so I go with it until it is debunked and replaced.

>>9157059
Why is is then than most of the biggest thinkers of our time believe in God despite being not forced to? Atheists are still a minority, even in the hard science fields.

You give intrinsic value to science. Why? What gives value to science?

>>9157059
>"Hurr, if I keep asking philosophy 101 questions like 'define literally every single word you used in that sentence, then logically prove every single word, they'll eventually dismiss me as a moron and that will mean I win!"
Understanding is the key concept, it is not just some semantic bullshit. If understanding is misunderstood, what can even be gained from any of this? I get to know that mad demons shitpost because they are bored or that I create autists around me?

>>9157016
atheism has existed since humanity. this is a shit argument posted way too often.

>>9157071
"observation" in QM just means interference during measurement. Consciousness is not required to collapse wave-functions.

>>9156998
I'm not a nihilist. And that was literally the last point I made after explaining what you said in the first point. I topped my sundae of asswhooping with "you're just made your bullshit is going obsolete" and you're pretending that's ALL I said.

Nihilism, by the way, is just as stupid as theology. Because suppose it is true: Everything becomes irrelevent. Why do fuckin anything then? Nihilism as a proposition is utterly pointless. It has next to no real value. It's hardly worth considering before discarding it.

>>9157010
Then fuck right off. This is a discussion. If you won't or can't discuss the topic, why are you here flinging shit? Did I upset you so much you feel compelled to engage me even as you struggle to respond? That's sad.

>>9157031
Dunno anything about it but a quick google makes him look like another Deepak Chopra. He uses a lot of pop culture physics terms to describe ancient theological bullshit, makes a ton of assumptions based on these mangled terms, then uses the conclusions to these false premises as proof for a unified theory that has extremely little basis in reality.

>>9157088
>"observation" in QM just means interference during measurement.
I know, but this fellow states that it is different if conscious observer does it and if it is done by a machine.
>collapse wave functions
He answers that earlier on. He claims it is a cop-out because they wanted to avoid the rather obvious implications.

>>9157071
>I haven't studied the field, but this aligns with my intuition so I go with it until it is debunked and replaced.
You're a moron for this above all else. A rational person waits for proof. It does not cling to whatever sounds good until it gets disproven, because then you end up believing a ton of unfalsifiable bullshit, like the existence of God.

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>>9155537
>I have never seen an answer to atheism a part from ad hominem in the form of fedora memes.
Have you considered reading outside of your bubble?

>>9157100
why aren't you looking at the prevailing interpretation of QM is you want to appeal to current science? This guy is a hack.

>>9155748
And how does any of that make Buddhists atheists?

>>9157089
>Then fuck right off. This is a discussion. If you won't or can't discuss the topic, why are you here flinging shit?
You said God is irrelevant. My strategy switched to letting you cook for a bit longer.

God is defined as the act of existence. To deny Him is to deny yourself. Odd how few seem to notice the pattern here.
>What must then follow
You 'must be' a meatblob. You 'must be' irrelevant.
It goes on and on. Make a hell for yourselves if you want to, but don't try to expand it to real beings.

>>9157103

I go to places like pol all the time for that very purpose.

>>9157059
so if sapience is not a prerequisite for science but it IS a prerequisite for religion (correct me if I'm wrong on this, idk if animals can be theists) what does that say about religion/humanity? Are we better off as ants or monkeys than humans?

>>9157101
>You're a moron for this above all else. A rational person waits for proof.
He shows plenty. Double slit works, his model works. Is it not proof enough? How long did you wait for gravitons, black holes, relativity to be proven?

>>9157112
>reiterations of axiom = argument

>>9155537
religion is clearly fucking bullshit.
anybody genuinely grounded in religion is a fucking idiot until they get out of it. it's fucking poison. it's mindblowing how christianity returned as a backlash to the growing prominence of islam. it isn't really any surprise that the most boring dumbfuck bandwagon-hopping political hipster pseudo-contrarians are now advocating for the return christianity where 5 years ago they're the same people that would've been on the atheism train.
"atheism" as a movement to "replace religion" isn't the answer. having the masses move to a life where they don't see religion as a requirement to use their fucking brain and heart is.

>>9157071
atheists will debate this

>>9157105
>why aren't you looking at the prevailing interpretation of QM
Isn't this one of many in combat? Not that I see a necessary problem with many worlds interpretation and this one. (The rest would simply not get processed).

>>9157113
I want to scream at your post.
I hope you're kidding. /pol/ is "culturally Christian" at best, and by 'reading' I meant literature. Nobody on /pol/ reads anyway.

>>9155537

Only a semi-illiterate retard would even attempt to read Hitchens.

>>9157117
>discussion = argument

>>9157089
I'm specifically referring to the Double Slit Experiment, and his experiment which builds off of it. He is a huge believer of Simulation Theory, but I'm more interested in a separate analysis of the hard data from the experiments than his own.

>>9157126
Not really. Almost all physicists working in QM accept the Copenhagen Interpretation. There are alternative factions, notably DeBroglie-Bohm (which keeps determinism but has non-local variables). The Many-World Interpretations has essentially no adherents within the world of physicists, although it has a lot of discourse in the lay crowd (for the obvious reasons). The consciousness models are even rarer than that.

>>9157074
>Why is is then than most of the biggest thinkers of our time believe in God despite being not forced to? Atheists are still a minority, even in the hard science fields.
First respond to the numerous challenges for you to prove how this is relevant.
Second, atheists are a majority in hard sciences. The more rigorous the field, the more atheists.
Third, belief doesn't impact findings. 100% of physicists could be theists and it wouldn't make their personal beliefs any more important. You should appreciate this since the fact that most physicists are atheists should make you an atheist if you care about appeals to authority so much.

>>9157076
You are the autist. I laid everything out with crystal clarity. You speak English. You understand colloquial language and probably some technical language. You know EXACTLY what I said. You asking ME for arbitrary definitions and refinements is an ancient philosophy circlejerk: You want off this topic. The topic is science AND YOU CAN'T HANDLE IT. You know you can't play to your strengths here. You know you can't use any of your tricks here. So you MUST yank this discussion into the land of bullshit philosophical semantics to have a chance in hell at engaging me on even ground.

And I'll humor you a bit, but I will not fall for that. I'll yell over into philosophical "hurr reality is all an assumption, how can we be real if our eyes aren't real?" land, but my feet are planted over here in reality.

Again, I don't need to define "understanding" because I used the term in the common sense and you know what that is. If you want to pursue this trap, it is YOU who must now offer up an alternative definition. But you don't want to. Why? Because the whole reason you challenged me to define it was to put me on defense so you could attack me with philosophical questions. But if you're the one forced to offer up the definition, then YOU are the one on defense and your plan is a failure.

Yeah, I took philosophy in college too. I know exactly how this game works.

>>9157142
Good thing it isn't about popularity. That would be an error.

>>9157144
If you want to know about science, you defer to scientists.

seeing a lot of pilpul-tier debatists in here

>>9157130

I want to finish the Romans before jumping into Christian theology.

>>9157074

[citation needed]

>>9157143
>arbitrary definitions
It's only arbitrary if you are biological cleverbot.

>And I'll humor you a bit, but I will not fall for that. I'll yell over into philosophical "hurr reality is all an assumption, how can we be real if our eyes aren't real?" land, but my feet are planted over here in reality.
Atheism is both cancer and arrogance. Also wrong on every level, not least morally or factually. Truth is arbitrary to you anyway.

>Again, I don't need to define "understanding" because I used the term in the common sense and you know what that is
You undermined common sense by putting it under models made by reason.
>need
Your world view results in a world without any need for anything. Hence truth and its nature is arbitrary.

>If you want to pursue this trap, it is YOU who must now offer up an alternative definition.
Are you real -> can you understand -> probe it if it can.
They never can.

>>9157151
Not popularity among them. If there is conflict, most or everybody are wrong. One person being right is more worth than all of them being only somewhat.

>>9157112
>You said God is irrelevant. My strategy switched to letting you cook for a bit longer.
"I was just pretending to be retarded!"
Well there it is.

>God is defined as the act of existence.
No it isn't.

>You 'must be' a meatblob. You 'must be' irrelevant.
It's all a matter of perspective. On a universal scale, we are irrelevent. On a global scale we are all just meatblobs. On the scale of ants we are titans. On the scale of single-celled organisms we are like gods.

Only on the scale of individuals and communities are we people in the usual sense. This is the scale we occupy, so this is how we conduct ourselves. Not a hard concept.

>>9157114
Counting =/= sapience.
Sapience is a spectrum. Having some rudimentary faculties for one dimensions of sapience does not meant a crow can do calculus.

>what does that say about religion/humanity?
Not what you're wishing it did. You seem to be reaching for a way to imply that religion is a higher order of thought than science. Perhaps a supernatural awareness. It's not. Sorry.

>>9157116
His assertions don't logically follow his "proof". He's taken experiments others have done and essentially twisted their results to create his new hypothesis. A hypothesis with no further supporting proof. More importantly, thousands of papers have been written on REAL hypotheses and theories that can be supported by these same experiments.

This is like believing that vaccines cause autism because ONE doctor (who got his license revoked and was criminally charged) said it did, despite the other 99.999% of scientists insisting it didn't.

This is like believing climate change is a Chinese hoax because 3 climate scientists out of every 100 say it's fake, all of which work for conservative research groups.

Also, gravitons, black holes, and relatively are NOT proven. Not yet. We just have an abundance of evidence indicating that it's very likely to be true, so we often proceed assuming they are true, because it would take a lot of strong data to contradict the data we currently have.

This guy has no strong data in his favor, and at least as much data contradicting him. So to believe in his theory is not remotely the same as believing in black holes.

>>9157160
Why didn't you want to finish the Romans before jumping into anti-theism? I really can't tell if you're memeing or not, not that I particularly care.
I'll just drop a suggestion relevant to the OP; John C. Lennox, "Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target"

>>9157170
You're not in a position to adjudicate. Scientific consensus is what you appeal to when appealing to science. If you appeal to single person whose view every other physicist rejects, you should reconsider even appealing to science. You might as well appeal to Deepak. Stop trying to make your beliefs look rigorous.

>>9157175
>"I was just pretending to be retarded!"
>Well there it is.
Nah. My strategy was letting you act like a fool, God will sort you out.

>>9157187
>Scientific consensus is what you appeal to when appealing to science.
https://youtu.be/cvMlUepVgbA

>>9157198
keep posting youtube videos by fringe hacks
this is the same way conspiracy theorists get their information

>>9157134
Simulation theory is tantalizing, but it has the same issue as theism and nihilism: So what if we are in a simulation? It changes nothing for us. Instead of "Oh our reality is relativistic phenomenon in a sea of quantum foam" it's "oh, our relativistic reality in a sea of quantum foam is generated by algorithms defined in another, higher level reality."

The only way to proceed from there is to do exactly what we would have done before such a discovery: Keep surviving. Keep gathering data. Keep synthesizing and testing new theories.

I mean the simulation theory in the mainstream says we could be 70+ levels deep. There could be 70+ levels of simulation above us. Our simulators are simulations of simulations of simulations of simulations. And it's even kind of weird to call them "creators" because they probably didn't intentionally create us. We probably arose naturally from the initial conditions they defined for reality.

Speculating about us being a simulation is like asking an NPC in Skyrim what they think about being an NPC in a simulation running on your computer: They don't have an answer. They just go back to doing what the simulation dictates. Their essence is intrinsically tied to the simulation that generated them. We just happen to hypothetically arise from a slightly more advanced simulation than Skyrim.

>>9157203
Is this fringe? TV is as mainstream as it goes. This is blackscienceman show. Is he wrong? y/n? If he is, where is he?

>>9157190
not that guy but "strategy" in argument only applies to fucktards who don't know what they're saying. imagine my surprise at seeing you were the dumbass zealot.

>>9157205
>So what if we are in a simulation? It changes nothing for us.
It changes everything. If it changes nothing, you were nothing to begin with, NPC.

>>9157208
wow, he's on TV? he must represent scientific consensus! are you serious?

string theory isn't even widely accepted, much less the frankenstein monster of string theory + simulationism

>>9157205
not that guy but simulation theory is probably even worse than religion. it's basically nihilism with detachment ala buddhism.
and no belief taken on faith should change the way we act in daily life, that's just fucking sad.
either way i don't think anyone really lives by it, if they do they're probably already relatively detached which doesn't change much.

>>9157212
>argument
It is very curious how this conversation has been classified. Argument, discussion, debate...

>>9157220
He has equations and research. Is he wrong? Poison the well as you like. Is he wrong? That's what I care about. You care about
>Is it accepted by my heroes?
If there is this magical consensus that shows itself only behind closed doors somewhere, and you won't even refer to them beyond name only, do you really think I'm going to change my view? Since it is not my field, it is a very flexible model that I am using. My career is not bound to it.

>>9157208
Get a dictionary

>>9157164
So I'm gonna chalk that little "no u" of a comment as a concession. May I recommend you try this shit over on GFAQs or NeoGAF or something? I'm sure you can find some 14 year olds who will fall for your word games over there. :^)

>>9157215
A simulation is not "nothing".
There is nothing that can be done with the basic gist of that information.

Would you start a new church of the Simulator Gods?

Would you kill yourself to escape the 70th level of hell and pray you ascend to a heaven beyond the topmost simulation?

What useful behavior could you possibly undertake with just this information?
You still have biological needs. You still must eat, sleep, breath, shit, (shitpost, if your case),etc. Wow, look at that. So much of your post-revelation day is exactly like it was before you found out you were a simulation! How about that?

>>9157234
>Where is he wrong*?
Fixed it for you.

>>9157203
>Only hierarchical power structure applied models can ever work, despite failing for decades at a time, until the elder dies

>>9157240
>Fixed it for you.
Hey thanks bud, appreciate it

>>9155748
>The buddhists "gods" are either beings of different planes of existence which are subject to the same rules as us mortals
So kinda like Islam then?
>or are manisfestations of the "Buddha Nature" canonized by their followers
So kinda like Greek thought or, for that matter, Hinduism then?

>>9157232
String theory and simulationism aren't even falsifiable.

>magical consensus
You're incapable of thinking about science. The scientific consensus itself in broad agreement in the scientific fields in question. If you want to find out about, read an article or a book. Stop trotting out fringe theorists. They have their place in the development of science but it's inappropriate for a lay person to appeal to them as if they are an authoritative source vetted by Science. Scientists aren't priests; they are only authoritative when taken collectively.

>>9157239
>Would you start a new church of the Simulator Gods?
Your theological understanding borders or approaches zero. The claim of simulation is not against any known religion. God is the act of existence in Christian understanding. Hinduism states that we are Godhead's dream.

> May I recommend you try this shit over on GFAQs or NeoGAF or something? I'm sure you can find some 14 year olds who will fall for your word games over there.
I see. Still not getting through Turing test(Descartes).

>>9157240
>the fact that scientific inquiry progresses means that it is on par with dogma

>>9157232
not really but i can see how it can seem that way to the religious dumbfuck who wears everyone they talk to out by constantly bringing up some irrelevant point as if it has any weight.

Where does this idea come from that science are polar opposites? Sure, the church has oppressed science in the past but we mustn't forget that many historically significant scientists were religious.

>>9157270
>Where does this idea come from that science are polar opposites?
their epistemological methodologies

>>9157255
>Don't you dare build a world view that isn't applied by this structure (yet), regarding matters that are not even understood anywhere
String theory equations have computer code in them. That can mean that our mathematical models are deriving in a certain way from binary, and little else. It implies more, but that's the base.

All those fringe scientists refer to actual, authentic experiments or equations. They had machines "observe" only to find out that it still needed consciousness.

>>9157277
String theory is unfalsifiable, meaning it has no empirical content. How can they refer to authentic experiments to support their theory?

The double-slit experiment supports QM. That is, ANY interpretation of QM, all of which are, by the way, empirically equivalent. That means there is no support for this fringe interpretation in particular as opposed to the prevailing one.

>>9157255
>String theory and simulationism aren't even falsifiable.
They hypothetically are. We just don't have enough data yet. We're still making observations and refining our models. They'll probably be testable eventually.

>God is the act of existence in Christian understanding.
No he's not. And you've yet to back this claim up despite my challenge for you to do so.
I suspect you're moving the goalposts. Redefining God to be some amorphous, useless term that can be applied universally, so that everything that exists is God, therefore God exists, therefore theism is correct.

Yeah, heard that one before.
Still shot down by all of my previous comments. It's useless, vague, unfalsifiable, alternative to many definitions, etc etc. Replace "God" with "The Cookie Monster" and it holds just as much water.

>>9157277
just admit you don't know anything about theoretical physics

>>9157275
What is the epistemological methodology of science?

>>9157264
>he isn't aware that professors can be corrupt, and that rules of power apply in every institution
The more the field of science spreads out and thins, the more power these institutions have over the public view. It's Catholicism at some point, without the pope.
Patents and economics killed much of engineering. Politics affects how many scientists are even trained.

There ain't no science in a vacuum.

>>9157290
It's not about string theory, it's about the equations they use. It aligns, implying something. Not necessitating anything.
What I classify as truth is not everything in those videos, but specific claims expressed in them. I even had a timestamp for the other one. It referenced a point, a very specific point - that observation requires a conscious being for the "collapse of the probability wave-function" to happen. The latter was just how I would explain String theory aligning with the simulation model.

Nothing more, nothing less.

>>9157291
>No he's not. And you've yet to back this claim up despite my challenge for you to do so.
https://youtu.be/2BQSqHrU7ns

How about a bishop referencing Aquinas?

>>9157302
In broad strokes, refining, modifying, or replacing pre-existing predictive or descriptive theories, with experiment or observation acting as point of contact between theory conceived as an interconnected body and the phenomena. Naturally, the specifics vary by discipline.

>>9157299
see >>9157232 (not my field)

Not a single one of you has answered anything aside from "hurr, this is unreliable guy, ignore ignore!" without anything to back it up, aside from popularity.

Literally every reputable scientist pre 1920 was a religious person.

>>9157319
>professors can be corrupt, and that rules of power apply in every institution
obviously, but that doesn't make your bronze-age book more or as authoritative
science is the best tool we have for figuring out the world, and I'm not going to abandon it because it's not perfect.

>It's not about string theory, it's about the equations they use.
What do equations have to do with anything? I can recognize a pattern that appears in two different domains, that doesn't imply any deep mystical truth about either.

>It aligns, implying something. Not necessitating anything.
Do you believe in astrology?

>observation requires a conscious being for the "collapse of the probability wave-function" to happen
this is rejected by the vast majority of physicists working in QM

>>9157350
>obviously, but that doesn't make your bronze-age book more or as authoritative
Did I claim that?

I am not anti-science. I am anti-consensus when it has no base.

>>9157334
incapable of thought
do you really think consensus has no role in science's epistemic authority? would it be authoritative if every schmuck had a radically different theory?

>>9157358
>I am anti-consensus when it has no base.
you are not in an epistemic position to adjudicate on whether the consensus in QM is baseless
guess who is

>>9157325
Ain't nobody got 20+ minutes to listen to one of the most biased sources on the topic.

The facts are clear: 99% of Christians, Christian writing, and Christian behavior treats God as an omnipotent skydaddy. Not some grand, transcendental super-reality from which all reality as we know it is but a small facet.

So it's supremely dishonest to pretend that the idea of "God is the act of existence" is remotely the same thing as the Christian concept of God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, etc.

Again, it reeks of moving the goalposts. God defined as existence itself, with no measurable effect, no measurable, source, ZERO WAY TO DETECT "GOD" IN LITERALLY ANYTHING IN EXISTENCE, is meaningless. Useless. Absolutely irrelevent.

This is like building a religion on protons being red even though protons cannot have a color and the color of a proton is likely meaningless to our lives.

Suppose we permit this definition. Ok. God is the act of existence. That goes nowhere. That does not make Christianity true. That does not make heaven or hell real. Or angels or demons. It doesn't change a single thing about our lives. "God" merely becomes another name for the universe. Which is a thing that people have done for hundreds of years if not millennia. Again: Pointless.

>>9157350
>What do equations have to do with anything?
That's where they found the computer code. Ie. our models for the world are binary of the finest order. If string theory is false, a false model is very deeply integrated with the rest of our models, interestingly enough, related to the information field (IT).

>Do you believe in astrology?
No. I do think that people who are born in different times of the year generally grow up to fill certain roles. Older kids are almost a year older than the younger, you'll see the difference in school.
However, I know nothing about astrology, aside from the very basics. Maybe I should go to >>>/x/ to see. Or maybe not.

>What do equations have to do with anything? I can recognize a pattern that appears in two different domains, that doesn't imply any deep mystical truth about either.
>this is rejected by the vast majority of physicists working in QM
For what reasons? They don't like the other ones, or they get funding from this one. Preference is not truth.

>>9157256
God, in Christian understanding, is the Person who created you, time, space, matter and all contain within them, of nothing but His own will, and revealed it to us.

>the video
In your own words:
>You're incapable of thinking about science. The scientific consensus itself in broad agreement in the scientific fields in question. If you want to find out about, read an article or a book. Stop trotting out fringe theorists. They have their place in the development of science but it's inappropriate for a lay person to appeal to them as if they are an authoritative source vetted by Science.
Replace "science" with "theology" and you have it.

>>9157369
>you are not in an epistemic position to adjudicate on whether the consensus in QM is baseless
Every media related to QM acknowledges the issues it has with explaining the events taking place. Hence it is 'baseless'.

>guess who is
Har har. I understand double slit experiment better than most.

>>9157398
*contained

>>9157393
do you're just going to insist on the most extravagant interpretation that says consciousness collapses the wave function?
I will grant you that there are non-empirical considerations that contribute to the form of scientific theory and consensus, some virtuous (like simplicity) and some vicious, but that doesn't seem to give you license to jump to the one that happens to coincide with your religious worldview. Does it really not matter to you that almost the entire scientific community rejects the line you want to push? And if so, why are you even talking about science?

>>9157398
>God, in Christian understanding, is the Person who created you, time, space, matter and all contain within them, of nothing but His own will, and revealed it to us.
Yes, and? He is still the act of existence itself.

>>9157416
> that doesn't seem to give you license to jump to the one that happens to coincide with your religious worldview.
Who gives the license? I do. If I am wrong, then I will be proven wrong. God has yet to fail me on that one.

>>9157417
Okay.

>>9157445
You've read the
>You are the Universe experiencing itself
Cliche before, right? It's similar but beyond that.

>>9157431
so you're saying you'll just believe whatever you want
sure showed me

>>9157461
>you'll just believe whatever you want
It has to align with my axioms, be intuitive enough to apply and it has to work. It also has to bring me enemies of some kind.
>sure showed me
Be entertained in your own dick. I don't plan on replacing that.

>>9157482
alright, I'm out
have a good night