God & the Fairy Tree

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I can't tell you if God exists, but I wouldn't consider a person who spends no time simply contemplating the big questions for themselves as a deep person of any sort.

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What you call "deep thinking", I call "mental mastubation".If there is no way to know the answer to a question, and in fact, no way to know if you are even in the same galaxy of the answer, then it is just self-indulgent, irrelevant bullshit. Navel-gazing.There are, though, quite profound, meaningful questions that are potentially answerable that I have spent a lot of time contemplating, such as:How should I treat other people?
What can I do to make the world a better place?
What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?
How can I best contribute to the lives of others?

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One need not dwell on them indefinitely, but I fail to see how an intelligent person can go through life without some goal posts set up for their own existence.

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See above.

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It is crucial to Christian thought and many other philosphies as well, that every person can be a mediator or fulfill a special need for the world. At the very least I can say my purpose now is to provide a safe and supportive home for my children...but to what end?

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Objectively speaking, do we tell children that we have no idea why we are here, or do we tell them that everyone is special and can do great things for the world even without being noticed?

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False dichotomy.Why not tell them both? We don't really know why we are here, but everyone is unique and can do great things for the world, even if nobody notices.

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How could you tell children there is no meaning to life?

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You say to them:"Nobody has ever found a universal, ultimate meaning to life, but that doesn't mean that life has no meaning! The meaning that it has is the meaning we ourselves give it."

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You may tell them you don't know, but perhaps they will find someone who claims they do. Children don't like not knowing, and honestly, adults don't either.

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Bingo.That discomfort is where the belief in the supernatural, including gods, was born.

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That is what makes great scientists and philosophers and theologians.

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I'd say that with scientists, it is not discomfort with not knowing but a great curiosity about nature that motivates them. In fact, a person who doesn't like having to live with tentativity and uncertainty shouldn't try to be a scientist.Theologians, on the other hand, can pretty much spent a lot of their time indulging in mental masturbation since there's no real way to tell them they are absolutely wrong about their interpretation of whatever religious aspect they like to think about.Philosophers are a bit better than theologians, since they are quite tied to logic in their profession, but some of them get pretty pointless in their mental meanderings, too.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

Great. I don't see how any of these questions can be answered without figuring out on some level what the purpose of our existence is or whether there is a God.As to the rest of it, I don't call anything mental masturbation unless it interferes with reality, and nothing is a waste of time which contributes to the body of knowledge and thought we already have. My mother, for years, tried to curb this so called mental messing about, and there are certainly times when I can't take one more word from Wilde, or any other muser, including the Bible shredders...but it is vital and completely human to desire an understanding of the human condition, and we are certainly evolved with the ability and the need to learn much more about life than the sciences.

But I am not advocating that, and I wish people would speak more objectively to me rather than put typi-thiest words in my mouth.I am simply pointing out that when we teach a child anything at all, we are giving them the groundwork for future ideas. You really can't go to a child and say 'sit there' without a reason just as you can't get them started on life with no idea of what life is. We set their goals, whether it be success, amusement, idleness, or heroism, we are imparting our philosophies.I really don't want to get into an argument about whether we should pass on our faith to our children, and I did not imply that atheists wander around without meaning in their lives. In fact, I have said the opposite on more than one occasion. It is true of everybody that even with so many things unanswered, we are living life as if they have been. The atheist is not living with an eye peeled for gods, and the thiest is not living frivolously just in case there is no God. Agnosticism is a state of mind that does not carry through to our actions.

How can you know that questions can't be answered? That's a weird thing for scientists to say. Don't you think at one time we considered it unknowable what the weather was like on the moon? Don't you think that we considered it unknowable if the sun revolved? What about the ocean floor? I mean, seriously, you will probably go post on an abiogenesis thread, and at the same time say 'it is silly to wonder how we got here'.Btw...does nator read and/or copy you? I can't help but notice that she throws around the same words in a very close proximity to your posts. Odd coincidence. How do you tell a question which has no answers from a question not yet answered? That's rude. I imagine you have no kids, or you wouldn't speak so frivolously of what you imagine you would tell them. Yeah, a big difference for sure. I am certain that the relation of species is not important to starving people, sick people, depressed people, the poor and uneducated of all time....and the meaning of life IS. Do you believe that Mother Theresa gave hope to millions by talking about science? I am telling you that everyone on this board is only blessed to be able to sit and discuss all aspects of existence in the way that we do.

No, no...not spoken out loud, that't not the point.Everyone assumed the sign was a joke, that's all. What if it wasn't?I ma not ignoring the rest of your post, but I need a quick break.

How about if you try this:"How should I treat other people?" Well, how would you like to be treated yourself?"What can I do to make the world a better place?" Find out what this world needs and can do without, and see if you can act accordingly."What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?" The answer to that one can only be found inside yourself. (Why would you want to look outside yourself to find out what you want?)"How can I best contribute to the lives of others?" Ask them. Find out what they want from you, and see if you can accommodate their wishes.As you can see, all of these questions can be answered without resorting to imponderables like the purpose of life or the existence of God. It gets even better: once you assume that there may be no absolute, God-given purpose of existence, you find yourself free to chose your own purpose, to give your life a meaning of its own.Speaking for myself, I find that this philosophy of life gives me a much greater feeling of fulfillment than I would have had if I had to rely on an external source for the answers.(By the way, could you tell me if my previous message to you was of any help at all?)

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Thank you, I'm pleased to hear that. Rest assured Mike, I don't. As we both understand, it's just one of many arguments. True, but this thread is not about the truth-value of any claim. It is about inconsistent reasoning. I'm afraid that's not true. Einstein described himself, referring to his Jewish descent, as a "deeply religious unbeliever". His God was the God of Spinoza, a pantheistic all-pervading principle rather than a personal entity. I do, as long as they, after due consideration, dismiss the idea in the absence of evidence. And you are appealing to authority, but I can tolerate that from you.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

But within the context of a debate about theism you did say - Forgive me if I got the wrong end of the stick but you did seem to be saying that religious belief does give meaning and purpose to peoples lives and that in the case of children this is a good, or even necessary, thing.All I was saying is that religious belief has little bearing on whether or not one grows up with purpose and meaning in their life.If you weren't saying that it does I am not sure why you brought it up in the context of this debate?

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Great. I don't see how any of these questions can be answered without figuring out on some level what the purpose of our existence is or whether there is a God.

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It can be easily done, regardless of your inability to see how.All of these:How should I treat other people?
What can I do to make the world a better place?
What kind of legacy do I want to leave behind?
How can I best contribute to the lives of others?are questions relating to getting along in society. Anyone can figure out how to get along with other people regardless of if they haven't given a moment's thought about if God exists.

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As to the rest of it, I don't call anything mental masturbation unless it interferes with reality, and nothing is a waste of time which contributes to the body of knowledge and thought we already have.

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Erm, I just told you that I don't think that such contemplation actually contributes anything at all.The questions of if God exists, what is the meaning of life, etc. are unanswerable.

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My mother, for years, tried to curb this so called mental messing about, and there are certainly times when I can't take one more word from Wilde, or any other muser, including the Bible shredders...but it is vital and completely human to desire an understanding of the human condition, and we are certainly evolved with the ability and the need to learn much more about life than the sciences.

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Sure.That's why I contemplate the big questions that actually have answers, like the ones I mentioned above.Those are the questions that actually matter. Who cares if God exists if people still treat each other like shit?Edited by nator, : No reason given.

And how would they determine that? At what point are they imbued with the knowledge that fairies are real? If that ever happened then it would differ drastically from the God analogy since we have not been imbued with such knowledge.As it stand we have the same information about God as we do about the fairies: Childish people and eccentric groundskeepers believe in fairies without any evidence. The eccentric groundskeepers may try and convince you he has actually seen the fairies but that's just a little creepy and we humour him in case he's batshit insane. Then we laugh at him around the dinner table this evening.There is less chance of the mockery if he had said he had seen Jesus/God, and that is the inconsistency para is talking about.

If you spend your time answering your own questions, eventually you start to get a sense for which questions have answers and which don't. Even mathematics has tools for determining the answerability of questions. No, of course not, because all you would have to do to find out is go there. I know how I got here. My parents had sex and I was born. Same as you. That's an answerable question. But that's not what people usually want to know when they ask "how did we all get here."If you're asking "what is the point of all this", that's a poorly-framed question that can't really be answered. Therefore it's really a waste of time to think about it for more than a minute - you might as well pick whatever answer you like best and be done with it. Oh, come on. You were a kid once, I'm sure. Don't you remember that watershed day when you realized that most of what adults were telling you - there's a Santa Claus, Grandma is in Heaven now, storks bring babies - was bullshit?Clearly we lie to our children, because they're not ready for some truths. (Or we're not ready to tell them.) No, come on. The meaning of life is what the idle ponder. Starving people are thinking about food. Sick people are thinking about pain. Pondering the "meaning of life", since it's a waste of time, is a luxury that the sick and starving can't afford. No, but I believe Norman Borlaug gave hope to a billion people by answering questions that you would find pointless. Mother Theresa accomplished jack shit (and was a thief, incidentally) compared to the contributions of Norman Borlaug - over one billion people are alive today that wouldn't be, thanks to him and his team of researchers.

Fair enough. I don't know the deep musings of Spinoza, but my understanding was that Einstein was a Pantheist - or a scientific pantheist. Well, whatever the case, even if this type of principle was his "God", it could be argued that that comes under a Theism-of-sorts. Thanks - perhaps I am trying to justify appealing to authority - in a way, but I suppose it seems valid to me, because I am not saying that this proves the God-concept has worth, but I think that if deep thinkers consider some form of God-concept, or higher intelligence, then it can not be that shallow.I can't remove the fact that ad-hoc arguments exist, I think it's okay that you dismiss a personal God because of this. All of the evidence seems to point in your favour.Bye for now.Edited by mike the wiz, : No reason given.

Because one is meant to be a joke and the other is not. I don't think your disclaimer lessened your intent.What exactly is intellectually immature and what exactly isn't?Also, can you make sweeping generalizations about all religions, or are some less intellectually immature than others?

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"The problem of Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting, but that it is difficult and left untried" -G.K. Chesterton

Often the funniest jokes are the ones that weren't intended as jokes at all. Whether or not something is a joke depends on whether or not it's funny.Children are at their funniest when they're being "intellectually immature".

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Disclaimer: My post should not be misinterpreted as advocating one theory or position over another. I simply like pointing out our own arrogance.Isaac Newton, Copernicus, and the fairy tale of gravitation and unexplained action at a distance.A few Naturalists who first objected to Newton's idea of unexplained action at a distance did so not because it was inconsistent with observed reality but dismissed it for no other reason than it cracked of nothing more than supserstituous mumbo jumbo. Those who were apt to accept the idea readily were themselves prone to superstitious ideas such as Alchemy, Astrology, and Theology. Gravity as a Force and explanation was some new strange concept that was oddly distant to contemporary thought. Unexplained action at a distance smelled like another bizarre astrological proposition. It could eaily be seen as another form of Astrology wrapped up in slick and bizarre mathematical speculations. Newton himself was once accused of being a hack.With that being said I can image many of today's leading proponents of the naturalist ideology giving a speech to the academy of natural philosophy in the 18th century:Gentlemen, I have heard it stated many times that Ptolemeyism is just a theory and not a fact. Any rational man can see this is absolutely ludicrous and absurd. Any thinking man who has eyes and a brain can see that the heavens revolve around the Earth. The predicted position of the planets and the reality of epicycles and defferents has been confirmed by every single observation to date. Again and again observations have repeatedly championed this beloved theory. As far as Copernicus’ objections it is quite possible he has been sipping too much sacramental wine while holed up in that Catholic monastery in Poland. His irrational belief in a deity obviously has hindered his objectivity and his ability to face the facts that are laid out before us all.Worse yet, that scoundrel Isaac Newton has appealed to some unseen ”force’ that is guiding the planets and keeping them in their place. When pressed for details Newton simply refuses to answer where this supposed force comes from much less explain what it is. When asked how such a ”force’ could act across a distance he again falls silent. When pressed to explain from where this force originates he merely states that it 'just is so' and looks away and continues to state such things as if they were fact. Before it can be given any respectable consideration we must demand from Newton he explain what this force is or from whence it came.Newton has the gall to expect us to accept his supernatural strawman hypothesis for no other reason than an appeal to a slick mathematical manipulation that is far removed from reality. His insane idea that there are infinitesimal numbers is total and complete rubbish. In a demonstration of intellectual madness he goes on to make the preposterous claim that all these infinitely small numbers can be combined with other numbers then added up to produce a finite number. What else would one expect from a hack who is also engaged in Alchemy, Astrology, and is a member of a Theological union?Not only are these ideas bizarre and repulsive to the intellect they are an obvious appeal to the god of the gaps and an attempt to make one’s science fit their supernatural beliefs. If, as Newton says the Moon is falling around the Earth and the Earth falling around the Sun then how may I ask did the Earth and Moon come to be dropped in the first place and why? Who or what first did the dropping? God? The Tooth Fairy? Santa Clause?His explanation for the tides is equally disturbing - a strange unexplained force emanating from other bodies and acting accross a great distance to pull the water up into the sky. Come now gentlemen, we are scientists and not theologians or astrologers. This is all clearly pseudoscientific nonsense without a shred of basis in reality.This sudden appeal to strange forces that mysteriously act over a distance is not needed to explain what we observe in the heavens nor is it productive or beneficial to the advancement of science. The facts speak for themselves. In the end it can be safely stated that Ptlomeyism is now just as much a fact as is the fact of phlogiston. It is creakingly, crashingly, crunchingly obvious to anyone with a set of eyes and an ounce of intelligence. Ptolemeyism is perfectly capable of explaining the nature of observed reality and there has never been a single observation to contradict it. This dangerous appeal to strange forces lurking behind the scenes is not only all smoke and mirrors it is not science at all. It is superstitious nonsense.The problem with the minority who object to Ptolemeysim is that if we give them an inch they will take a mile. If we let one doubt creep in regarding the validity of Ptolemeyism the end result is nothing but trouble. We have seen the alternative - unseen forces and influences. If we allow this what comes next? Why not allow strange ideas like other dimensions, time dilation, warped space or parallel universes? There would be no end to this madness and speculation.Entertaining objections or giving consideration to possible alternatives is an effort in folly as the present theory works well enough in accounting for what is seen. If we start to diverge people will begin to question our ability to arrive at objective conclusions. Worse yet, it will encourage others to have a distorted idea of what science is all about. They might think by its very nature science does not deal in absolute truths or that theories are always evolving and being refined. What do we have then? Chaos and rebellion.These strange tales of ”paranormal’ forces acting over a distance and large bodies being dropped from the heavens for no particular reason by unknown agents is an affront not only to reason but everything we have ever known about how the world operates. It is absurd and amounts to nothing but intellectual masturbation. I recommend such irrational and superstitious ideas be relegated to the dustbin of history where they belong. Questioning orthodoxy is reserved for the feeble minded and those who hold reason in contempt. I hereby declare Newton a heretic to established orthodoxy.My friends, as a heretic to orthodoxy Newton cannot be trusted. His psyche has obviously been compromised and corrupted by the evils of supernatural belief. Years from now, mankind will surely be indebted to us for our zeal in protecting the established truth of Ptolemeyism from the onslaught of pseudoscientific conjectures such as unexplained action at a distance. As far as Copernicus - it is best for the world if this mad monk remain locked in the belltower of his monastery where he can continue living out his days praying to the ghosts of the past. Give such individuals no heed. The world will eventually ignore the rantings of such madmen and will eventually grow up and come to grips with reality.