The Existence Of God

[cool hand luke]

Your best bud is a statue of aphrodite in a cemetary?

mama mia!

[Rabban]

^ Is that a common thing where you live because I've *never* heard of it.

[cool hand luke]

That was meant as a razz but was probably distasteful. I apologize

[Rogue]

I've got a question that kind of involves the existence of God but in a roundabout way.

What causes thought?

Cells?

Spirit?

I've always found it hard to believe that some cells forming together have the ability to create the human mind and in-turn create a not only living but thinking animal.

I've always envisioned the human body as a vehicle and vehicle only used to contain the spirit, whatever that may be. This little idea doesn't necessarily have to be, or at all, religious.

This is just my own silly little vision and has always helped me get by, especially when somebody close to me kicks it. To me the thought of there being nothing else after this life is really depressing and makes life rather insignificant.

I know people will say that it is insignificant and that's fine. In fact, people need to learn to say "that's fine" a lot more.
However, insignificance simply doesn't work for me and I hope you think that's fine because I'll never push my beliefs on you.

Science teaches us in term of billions of years when discussing the Earth. Comparing the age of our Earth and our universe to the existance of human beings tells me that no matter how smart we think we are we've barely just started the race. In fact, the gun just sounded and we've not even moved an inch. So, is the existance of something else or a higher power that crazy a notion?

[Warfare]

The die hard atheist will tell you that thought and consciousness are merely illusions. You don't really have freewill.

Thought and consciousness etc. are just a series of chemical and electrical signals within the brain. Parts of the brain have evolved to control certain parts of the body, other parts help the body react to stimuli, and the parts we don't use are proof of evolution or something like that.

At least that's what my psychology professor kept rambling about...

[Mighty Mouse]

^^ I've always thought that if there was nothing after this life, that makes what we accomplish a whole lot more impressive. Doesn't our time here become more valuable, and therefore, everything we do that much more valuable?

It's like climbing a flight of stairs. If you knew it was the only one, and if you fall off a cliff at the top, wouldn't you treasure each step, whereas if you knew that there was another flight after this one, it becomes just another step. The fact that we don't know if there is another one makes it more interesting.

[Rogue]

I agree with your second point MM. People have used the after life as a free pass to do whatever they want. We're seeing this every single day via martyrdom and war. If life was a stock I'd currently short its value.

The first point I see differently. If we're all doomed to the same fait of nothingness I see no point in life at all. A meteor could blast the Earth to bits and remove that impressiveness entirely. With the doom of the Earth imminent at some point in time there is really no value to anything at all. This will all be gone and then what? Anything that anyone has done means zippy. Hard to impress what doesn't exist.

I can easily parallel those that believe in something after death and those that do not and acknowledge via science the doom of the planet at some point in time. This free pass is a one-sided nickel IMO. Both sides can say the same, "Eh I'm gonna be in heaven anyway," or "Bah, this rock's gonna be blown to bits anyway."

[MonicaTTmed]

The die hard atheist will tell you that thought and consciousness are merely illusions. You don't really have freewill.

Thought and consciousness etc. are just a series of chemical and electrical signals within the brain. Parts of the brain have evolved to control certain parts of the body, other parts help the body react to stimuli, and the parts we don't use are proof of evolution or something like that.

At least that's what my psychology professor kept rambling about...

Warfare actually understands my position.

We have the illusion of free will, and nothing we could design would be able to predict what we do (because there are thousands of causes for our actions that most of us don't know about), so hey, pretend you have free will because the rest of the world acts like it! "thoughts" and "consciousness" don't have some sort of metaphysical yet somehow real existence. All hypothetical thoughts are abstract until you actually think them, in which case they become physical reality because of the chemicals in your brain.

This free pass is a one-sided nickel IMO. Both sides can say the same, "Eh I'm gonna be in heaven anyway," or "Bah, this rock's gonna be blown to bits anyway."

But you realize that even though the Earth is going to destroyed anyway, you won't be there to see it. So with all intents and purposes you have to take care of it so you can live on it for the rest of your life. The great thing about the absence of cosmic meaning is that you can create your own meaning. Be happy, make the most of your life, because it's all you've got. You can't go back and say "I wish I had studied biology" and then go do it. The universe does not care what you do, and that makes it all the more important as a part of your life.

"If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do."

[Rogue]

I'm not following Monica to be honest.

We don't have free will? Please elaborate.

[MonicaTTmed]

I'm not following Monica to be honest.

We don't have free will? Please elaborate.

Since there are no metaphysical entities of consciousness, our consciousness is the result of a bunch of atoms in the brain that work that way. We are our brains.

...you know what, this is hard to explain. Words are stupid.

here.

When it is said that you are using your "free will" to decide to eat spaghetti instead of macaroni and cheese, that doesn't mean that your brain did the equivalent of flipping a coin. So what does it mean?

Absolutely nothing. If your action was not based upon the deterministic laws of macroscopic physics, nor on the random quantum events of the microscopic world, what the hell was it based on? Anything? What caused one decision to be preferred to another? How did the particles in our physical universe come to be influenced by something other than these two things? It's impossible.

Your decisions are based upon a number of things: the genetically determined structure of your brain, what you have learned in the past, what drugs if any you are under the influence of, what injuries if any have occurred to your brain, and what sensory information is currently being input into your brain. If we could find a way to predict when the seemingly random quantum events occur, and we knew the position and velocity of every particle in the observable universe, we could in principle predict exactly what you will do for the rest of your life and what will happen throughout the entire universe for the rest of eternity.

You still have the capacity to make choices, though, even though free will is an incoherent concept. It's just that whatever you ultimately choose to do is going to be based on your brain structure, your experience and memory, the sensory stimuli your brain receives, and whatever chemicals you decide to introduce into your brain. The meat computer in your skull will mull over its options and do an exceedingly complex calculation to make its best guess as to what decisions will be most conducive to your happiness. It will do so according to its unique configuration and the unique circumstances of the situation.