When I drop my dog's leash into the box on the floor, it all-too-often is tangled when I take it out the next time. Weird. Is there an intelligent designer doing this? Why would he care about designing such stupid structures as knots in dog leashes?
Having both been one and interacted with many having very strongly held dogmatic opinions, which I often questioned: my conclusion is that we are better off using critical thinking based on provable facts in forming our opinions and beliefs.
There was a lot of social pressures and rejection of...
I believe in physical reality as demonstrated by physicists and cosmologists. In topics about which there is much disagreement (because nothing is yet proven), I have no opinion. I have no reason to believe something that has no strong evidence.
As an atheist, I find there to be no evidence of a supernatural realm having God or gods. And so,... there is no need to harmonize the good and bad of this world with the attributes of God, or to consider whether God is truly good in allowing for suffering by conscious creatures.
The categories I use are: (1) consciousness, and (2) its contents. I often use the word mind to refer to the second category, but I don't think that is a good word for it. The brain is the physical organ which generates consciousness and its contents.
Do you mean that the brain processes that lead to behavior and consciousness are calculations of the neural network of the brain? Certainly they are the result of the functioning of the brain, whether it is technically calculation or not -- who knows?
I don't think there are such things as evil and good except as abstract philosophical concepts. Suffering is the key thing; whether you inflict suffering upon other conscious creatures.
Asking him if rape causes suffering for the victim, and whether we should inflict suffering upon others. Since humans are animals, he would probably not care. There are people even today in our enlightened societies, even religious people, having the same kind of sensibilities.
Clearly all there is, is now. And we should be here now.
The question is, I think, whether our conscious mind persists after bodily death and experiences this now forever? And if so, what is the nature of this existence?
I have no moral concerns about the practice of responsible polyamory. Need to consider the topic of child-rearing and what psychological needs the children will have.
Consideration of other conscious creatures and to avoid inflicting suffering on them. It's a plus if you can send them joy and happiness in the process.
No. Even Christians (for example) who claim to use the Bible as their source of moral teaching; even they have wildly divergent views among each other, and they all ignore whatever moral teachings from the Bible they choose to. (Claiming there are valid reasons for doing this.)
In other words...
Why does this forum allow atheists to join in the first place if they wish to limit the discussion to religious topics among fellow religious practitioners? Even then, they will have strong differences of opinions. Even ChristianForums has such disagreements.
I enjoy philosophical reflection which includes such topics as consciousness and mind. People raise lots of interesting questions. They make claims about various topics, inviting thoughtful and respectful comments from those having a different perspective.