Five Reasons to Reject Belief in Gods

[Copernicus]

are you sure?

I am very sure that we are real, and I am at least as sure that your god is unreal as you are that other gods are unreal.

Thanks, but in Reality, quantum physicsts say, on the sub-atomic level we are all nothing more than vibrations in space-time.

Even if that were what they said, it would still have nothing to do with whether gods existed.

One might say, in Realty we are God's imaginary best friends, Go figure

If one did, then one would be letting one's imagination run wild.

 

[atanu]

I would actually expect scientists to be sensitive to the possibilty that mind-senses make the objects and the world. Nothing that one hears or sees can ever be separated from the functions of hearing-seeing etc.

But here Copernicus is proving that a seen object is actually the basis of seeing itself. This seems to me to be the effect of literal interpretation of science, opposed yet similar to literal interpretation of scripture.

 

[Quagmire]

JRB did not actually provide a link, nor did he provide a reason to believe that it would be worth my trouble to bother looking for it. I only have so many heartbeats left in me, so I'm going to be pickier about how I spend them as time goes on.

Happy birthday btw.

Again, you completely distort what I've said. I started this thread with five reasons to conclude that gods did not exist. My lack of faith is not a mere "acknowledgment [of] it to be an assumption". It is a conclusion established by argument.

Wow.


first person: "Hey man, your fly is open"

second person: "what are you talking about? My shoe is most certainly not untied"

first person: "No man, your fly is open. look"

second person: "And there's nothing wrong with my tie either"

first person: "Dude, listen,I'm trying to help out out here: your-fly-is-o-pen"

second person: "Ha! You're one to talk about needing a haircut!"

first person: "Um, Ok man. Have a nice day, and good luck"


Have a nice day, Copernicus, and good luck.

 

[Copernicus]

Not true. The Bible does not teach that the soul exists separate from the body.

I do not care what the Bible teaches, nor do most people who profess to be taught by it. And most Abrahamic versions of religion take their God to be an immaterial mind.

Not true. The ToE remains an unproven theory repudiated by the available evidence, and certainly does not explain the evident intelligence in what has been created.

This is utter nonsense. The ToE is not controversial among scientists. It is the foundation of the science of biology, and there is plenty of proof that intelligence is a set of traits that evolved over eons of natural selection for it. Even non-primate animals have been found to be more intelligent than previously suspected.

The great variety of false religions and religious practices do not spring from the true God. Rather, they are the inventions of opposers of God. The true God has but one true religion followed world-wide by it's adherents.

Is this not exactly what I was saying, except for the small detail that there is one less "true religion" in the world than you think? There is no reason why a "true religion" has to exist, and the sheer number of false religious doctrines suggests that human beings are really quite bad at detecting true gods and recognizing true doctrine. So any particular doctrine that you encounter in the world is highly likely to be false.

Prayer is not for personal benefit primarily, but is communication with the true God. Prayers to false gods always go unheeded. If God always miraculously protected those who serve him, how many more worshippers do you think there would be. But for the wrong reason. People of the true faith do live healthier, happier lives than others, because the follow God's laws and principles. But they suffer the same problems as all mankind, although they have a wonderful hope (Romans 5:12, 8:20,21)

Since there is no reason to believe that adherents to your "true religion" are any luckier or healthier than those of false religious doctrines, this explains why prayers of your fellow worshipers also appear to go unheeded.

The miracles in the Bible occurred publicly in front of thousands. Any deception would undoubtedly have been uncovered. Eyewitness testimony from persons of unimpeachable integrity is strong evidence for the Bible's miracles to be accepted.

Either that, or the reported miracles never happened. Given that we have plenty of false claims of miracles, we need to have some good reason to believe that the miracles reported in the Bible are not also false reports. We do not.

It is not unreasonable to expect the Creator of physical laws to be able to control them. Even Jesus enemies were unable to refute his miracles, though they scurrilously attributed them to Satan.

Well, it is not unreasonable to expect the Creator of physical laws to have better communication skills than he apparently does. Otherwise, we would expect there to be more believers in the "true religion" than there are.

 

[Copernicus]

Happy birthday btw.

Thanks. It was.

first person: "Hey man, your fly is open"
second person: "what are you talking about? My shoe is most certainly not untied"
first person: "No man, your fly is open. look"
second person: "And there's nothing wrong with my tie either"
first person: "Dude, listen,I'm trying to help out out here: your-fly-is-o-pen"
second person: "Ha! You're one to talk about needing a haircut!"
first person: "Um, Ok man. Have a nice day, and good luck"

Have a nice day, Copernicus, and good luck.

Why thanks, Quagmire.

Oh, and by the way...Hey man, your fly is open.

 

[Quagmire]

Thanks. It was.

Why thanks, Quagmire.

Oh, and by the way...Hey man, your fly is open.

*looks at fly. zips fly*

See how that should work? :yes:

 

[atanu]

I thought that the following may relate reasonably well to the thread.

We may cite one sutra from the great Yoga Text, The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, from its third chapter, which reads as 'Bahir akalpita vrittih mahavideha, tatah prakasavaranakshayah'. The suggested meaning of this Sutra is that the empirical thought, which we may consider as a psychological function that artificially relates itself to an object outside is one thing, and the thought precedent to this empirical thought which may be regarded as the way in which Cosmic Thought is inseparably related to the psychological thought, is another thing.

The point is that an individualised psychological thought cannot even function as it is distanced from its object by the intervention of space and time, unless at the back of it, integrally related, there is a Thought which does not require an object outside it, as this Thought is inseparable from its object. Here Thought is Being.

The sutra makes out that this Metaphysical Thought, when deeply meditated upon, leads to the liberation of the finite thought from getting entangled in space and time and absorbs it into the Overself, which we may consider as the Transcendental Thought, or what we may say in the language of religious devotion, God-Thought - not God's thought but God Himself as the Thought.

The Ontological Argument in Philosophy and Meditation Techniques

 

[Willamena]

I thought that the following may relate reasonably well to the thread.

Good thoughts.

Another fellow worded it another way: he said that as soon as we realize the "truth" of a thought, we cast it across the divide (the subject/object divide) to become as-real. I would suggest that "truth" (or truth-realizing, if you like) is the "psychological function that artificially relates itself to an object outside."

 

[atanu]

Scientists have actually been looking for evidence of an external function like that--a "free will" component in the stream of activity. So far, experiments have failed to justify any such mechanism. Decisions appear to be made before we register conscious awareness of those decisions. Hence, consciousness seems to be an after-effect of brain activity, not something that drives it directly.

Funny thing.

Scientists can only look for consciousness with that same consciousness that is late (that which seems to emanate of brain -- or actually is available in the mirror called mind later than the actual happening), all the while assuming that emanated awareness is all that is there to consciousness. And then a materialist re-constructs the finding's of Libet et al., in favour of this obviously flawed assumption.

In other words, equipped with a late rising consciousness, some scientists claim to have solved the understanding of the instantaeous consciousness.

OTOH, meditators know the following:
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/2445669-post447.html

Meditators can access the instantaneous conscious component and control the unconscious actions of the being towards its wellbeing. That consciousness in itself is distinct from the mental awareness is the basis of yoga and meditation and indeed is indicated by QM experiments on EPR paradox. And that knowledge and its benevolent application separates an enlightened sage from an unconscious individual entirely driven by fate.

Even if one is not inclined to accept the above as correct, the last concluding line of the cited WIKI article says:

Work in this sector is still highly speculative, and there is no single model of consciousness which would be favored by the researchers. ---

So, Libet experiment actually can point in both ways, but when seen in the context of meditators being able to alter their brain output, it points to the deep consciousness about which human mind is unaware, relegating it to the realm of the unconscious.

Further, when materialists are requested to consider the consciousness outputs in dream or sleeping states, they will either reject the dream as a special condition of waking brain or deep sleep as pure unconsciousness, forgetting that the unconscious is the palce where most of the being is hidden.

 

[Copernicus]

Atanu, I don't really see all of the paradoxes that you see when asking who observes the observer. In fact, self-awareness by definition is the observer observing itself. The brain creates a system of interacting systems. As a physical object, it is an extremely complex piece of equipment that has evolved to serve the navigational needs of an extremely complex moving body in a chaotic environment. There are levels of mental activity that we are usually unaware of, and Yoga teaches us to become aware of those levels. As someone who practiced hathayoga for a few years, I learned to control parts of the body that most people cannot control consciously. So I know a little about what is possible through that kind of mental exercise and discipline.

But none of what I have learned, at any rate, suggests to me that there is any conscious awareness that can exist independently of a working brain. Brains have a function in moving animal bodies--that of navigation. If our bodies did not move, we would have no need of brains or minds. (And this is one reason why plants have not evolved brains--they don't move.) Conscious awareness functions to monitor the health and well-being of a body. That is why AI researchers who work with robots are interested in the phenomenon. They need their autonomous machines to be aware of their own condition as they navigate their environment. Otherwise, they can get stuck and not know that they are stuck or be able to communicate that fact to others. (I myself have observed the consequences of this problem in lab experiments.)

I agree with you that we probably are not going to convince each other to change our minds about the relationship between mental conditions and physical conditions. However, I will leave you with a recommendation for a good book on the complexities of self-awareness: Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer-prize winning Godel, Escher, Bach. If you have not read it, then I recommend it highly. It is a meditation on the recursive nature of intelligence.

 

[atanu]

Atanu, I don't really see all of the paradoxes that you see when asking who observes the observer. In fact, self-awareness by definition is the observer observing itself.

You have already included an aware self in the equation above. OTOH, a perception cannot prove its own reality. And light cannot illuminate light.

But none of what I have learned, at any rate, suggests to me that there is any conscious awareness that can exist independently of a working brain.

In India, there is a Charvaka system of thinking which argues similarly that that the body endowed with the quality of intelligence is the Self. They give evidence that
intelligence is observed only where a body is observed while it is never seen without a body.

The idealists counter as below:

"A body is never perceived without complexion, etc. However, a body is sometimes perceived without consciousness. Therefore consciousness is not a quality of the body." Vatsyayana on Nyaya Sutra iii.2.47

"The qualities of body are of two kinds only, viz. (1)imperceptible, like heaviness and (2) perceptible by external senses eg complexion, etc. Consciousness differs from both these kinds: it is not imperceptible for it is internally apprehended, and it is not perceptible by the external senses, for it is an object known by the mind only. Therefore, consciousness is a quality of some substance other than the body." Vatsyayana on Nyaya Sutra iii.2.53
..................

This debate is eternal that has never been resolved.

However, it is illogical to consider that a fixed awareness running through existence is based on moment to moment changeable structures. Structures can explain further structures but not the consciousness that knows the structures. ---

I will leave you with a recommendation for a good book on the complexities of self-awareness: Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer-prize winning Godel, Escher, Bach. If you have not read it, then I recommend it highly. It is a meditation on the recursive nature of intelligence.

I tried reading it and got stuck. The themes are built on an a-priori assumption that intelligence is a product of inert matter. It does not prove that.

OTOH, with an understanding of two level awareness of a) basic and indivisible "I am" (which is formless and existing) giving rise to b) secondary "I am this body-brain" when in association with objects, the concepts of self-reference and recurrence become meaningful and leads to consciousness as the irreducible nature of the existence. The process has been compared with the way heat energy glows, acquiring the shapes of objects in it. Or, light bulbs glowing due to resistance to free flow of electrons.
............

Any way. We actually agree more than you realise. You have already acknowledged that brains are programmed by nature and that nature is all-pervading and within us also. I accept that much.

However, can nature stand alone? Nature , by definition, is nature of something. What is that something?

Nature, if you consider it to be creator of brains etc. and composed of parts, then it could not have existed prior to its components just as a car cannot exist before its components -- only the idea of a car can exist in some mind.

 

[atanu]

Ancient Indian Atheistic Faith: Charvaka mata

http://www.religiousforums.com/foru...ent-indian-charvaka-argument.html#post2447403

 

[PolyHedral]

However, can nature stand alone? Nature , by definition, is nature of something. What is that something?

The universe.

 

[rusra02]

I do not care what the Bible teaches, nor do most people who profess to be taught by it. And most Abrahamic versions of religion take their God to be an immaterial mind.

What you care about isn't the issue. You claimed that the soul existing apart from the body was strong reason not to believe in religion. So your argument is based on a wrong assumption.

This is utter nonsense. The ToE is not controversial among scientists. It is the foundation of the science of biology, and there is plenty of proof that intelligence is a set of traits that evolved over eons of natural selection for it. Even non-primate animals have been found to be more intelligent than previously suspected.

No, it is utter nonsense to believe the complexity and variety of created things happened by 'natural selection'. And further, there is no proof of such a thing.

Is this not exactly what I was saying, except for the small detail that there is one less "true religion" in the world than you think? There is no reason why a "true religion" has to exist, and the sheer number of false religious doctrines suggests that human beings are really quite bad at detecting true gods and recognizing true doctrine. So any particular doctrine that you encounter in the world is highly likely to be false.

Agreed. One must search for the one true faith.

Since there is no reason to believe that adherents to your "true religion" are any luckier or healthier than those of false religious doctrines, this explains why prayers of your fellow worshipers also appear to go unheeded.

I never said the prayers of true worshippers go unheeded. To the contrary. However, God is not a magic genie dispensing goodies to those requesting them.

Either that, or the reported miracles never happened. Given that we have plenty of false claims of miracles, we need to have some good reason to believe that the miracles reported in the Bible are not also false reports. We do not.

There were numerous eyewitnesses, who would rather die than deny what they saw. These were people who frankly discussed their own failings and weaknesses.
How could one man who died before he was 34 years old, who never wrote a book, who never ran for office, who was despised and persecuted, have affected the world as greatly as Jesus Christ did? That is a miracle in itself. No one has ever proved Jesus Christ miracles to be a fraud, though many have falsely claimed they were.

Well, it is not unreasonable to expect the Creator of physical laws to have better communication skills than he apparently does. Otherwise, we would expect there to be more believers in the "true religion" than there are.

Given the condition of people today, it is a wonder God does care for us, but he does. He has communicated with us. Trouble is, people do not want to listen. And they don't.

 

[atanu]

The universe.

That should be correct but I see a few problems.

• Which nature of which Universe. Honestly we know three types of Universe: in waking, in dreaming, and in deep sleep. Which nature is common to all these three perceived Universes?
• If Universe is a bimbo without intelligence then it will not know its nature. Who knows the nature?
• If Universe of sensual grasping is what there is of Universe -- ie., if if it is composed of parts such as you and me and treees, mountains, rivers, planets, etc., then the Universe could not have existed before its components. Like a car does not exist before its components.
• Universe does not come to us and tell us "Hey folks, see this is my nature". It is mind, aided by some unknown power (which some of us want to remove from the scenario) that knows the nature.
• The same nature is also part of us.

 

[Copernicus]

In India, there is a Charvaka system of thinking which argues similarly that that the body endowed with the quality of intelligence is the Self. They give evidence that
intelligence is observed only where a body is observed while it is never seen without a body.

I am aware of Charvaka, Lokayata, Brihaspati, etc., but only at a very superficial level. From what I have read, their contribution to Indian culture was either suppressed or simply not preserved by Hindu scholarly tradition. So, as with Greek and Roman atheists, the historical record only preserves criticisms of their points of view--the rebuttals to their arguments--not their rejoinders in the debate. That is regrettable, but the historical record of India's past is full of gaps.

The idealists counter as below:

"A body is never perceived without complexion, etc. However, a body is sometimes perceived without consciousness. Therefore consciousness is not a quality of the body." Vatsyayana on Nyaya Sutra iii.2.47

This argument strikes me as very weak. First, analogies are logical fallacies, because they always break down. Complexions and intelligence are not in the same category of "properties". One is tangible and the other is not. Second, the argument depends on the word "quality" having the same meaning in the Charvaka text as in the rebuttal to it, but the Charvakas could have rejected that as equivocation--a semantic difference rather than a substantive one. I don't know how they would have responded, because we have little surviving commentary from their school.

"The qualities of body are of two kinds only, viz. (1)imperceptible, like heaviness and (2) perceptible by external senses eg complexion, etc. Consciousness differs from both these kinds: it is not imperceptible for it is internally apprehended, and it is not perceptible by the external senses, for it is an object known by the mind only. Therefore, consciousness is a quality of some substance other than the body." Vatsyayana on Nyaya Sutra iii.2.53

Again, the rebuttal depends on false analogy and possible equivocation on the word "quality". Weight is actually "perceptible by external senses", but not by vision. You can judge the heaviness of objects by attempting to lift them or by weighing them. There is no reason why human bodies only have to have these two types of qualities, so his initial assumption may have been flawed from the perspective of Charvakas.

This debate is eternal that has never been resolved.

We can never know how the materialist Charvakas defended themselves against such arguments, because we have no record of their defenses.

However, it is illogical to consider that a fixed awareness running through existence is based on moment to moment changeable structures. Structures can explain further structures but not the consciousness that knows the structures.

But awareness is a fleeting phenomenon. It can only be described as a sequence of events in relation to physical events. Physical objects like bodies tend not to be conceived of as constantly-changing, even though they do change (often imperceptibly) from moment to moment. Thought is systemic in nature, not concrete. It is a property of interactions. Destroy the physical system that creates it, and you destroy the possibility of its existence.

I tried reading it and got stuck. The themes are built on an a-priori assumption that intelligence is a product of inert matter. It does not prove that.

Well, I thought that you might enjoy the meditation, but you are right that Hofstadter assumes that intelligence is the product of a physical system of interactions. He describes it quite eloquently with a series of metaphors--e.g. the beehive metaphor. You talk as if he were making a gratuitous assumption. I think that the gratuitous assumption is on the part of those who assume that intelligence can exist independently of the physical interactions that it seems so tightly coupled to.

OTOH, with an understanding of two level awareness of a) basic and indivisible "I am" (which is formless and existing) giving rise to b) secondary "I am this body-brain" when in association with objects, the concepts of self-reference and recurrence become meaningful and leads to consciousness as the irreducible nature of the existence. The process has been compared with the way heat energy glows, acquiring the shapes of objects in it. Or, light bulbs glowing due to resistance to free flow of electrons.

If there must be a physical process to cause light, then that explains the absence of light in the absence of physical process. I am only saying that intelligence is like light. It depends on an operating physical system for its manifestation.

Any way. We actually agree more than you realise. You have already acknowledged that brains are programmed by nature and that nature is all-pervading and within us also. I accept that much.

Yes. We are an integral part of nature.

However, can nature stand alone? Nature, by definition, is nature of something. What is that something?

Reality.

Nature, if you consider it to be creator of brains etc. and composed of parts, then it could not have existed prior to its components just as a car cannot exist before its components -- only the idea of a car can exist in some mind.

Yes, but cars are things that were intelligently designed. Biological entities are known to have evolved through mechanical processes--the interaction of simpler processes that created ever more systemic complexity over time.

 

[atanu]

I am aware of Charvaka, Lokayata, Brihaspati, etc., but only at a very superficial level. From what I have read, their contribution to Indian culture was either suppressed or simply not preserved by Hindu scholarly tradition. So, as with Greek and Roman atheists, the historical record only preserves criticisms of their points of view--the rebuttals to their arguments--not their rejoinders in the debate. That is regrettable, but the historical record of India's past is full of gaps.

Can't help it. It does seem that nature also has a preference.

This argument strikes me as very weak. First, analogies are logical fallacies,

I agree. Logic is true within its scope and is limited to mental -thought realm. But the knowledge that "I exist" does not require any mental thought. It is pre-mentalisation. One can remove all categories of existence by logic or by meditation but one will not be able to remove one's own awareness -- of self -- of existing. If you meditate deeply you will find that time itself is a product that comes from mentalisation but the "I AM" is timeless.

But awareness is a fleeting phenomenon.

Again you are confusing the issue. Perception cannot understand itself. The fleeting phenomenon is of a fleeting name-form called "Copernicus" of "Atanu" -- the underlying awareness is unbroken.

If there must be a physical process to cause light, then that explains the absence of light in the absence of physical process. I am only saying that intelligence is like light. It depends on an operating physical system for its manifestation.

I agree. The thinker is later than Seer, which is later that the existence - reality, which is timeless and underlies three divisions of time: the past, the present, and the future..

In Brihadaraynaka upanishad there is a story. How the primeval Purusha (do not confuse with name and form -- Purusha is the awareness of existence before Usha-light) rubbed its palms together and brought out heat and light. That is what the whole of Veda teaches that Universe of perception is effect of work -karma, beginning with the act of Seeing. But the awareness of "I Am" is prior to any action.

Yes. We are an integral part of nature.
Reality.

I am saying the same. "I AM" is the only factual and unchanging reality beneath all Seeing and Thinking. One can remove all categories of existence by logic or by meditation but one will not be able to remove one's own awareness -- of self -- of existing; of "I Am" awareness.

Yes, but cars are things that were intelligently designed. Biological entities are known to have evolved through mechanical processes--the interaction of simpler processes that created ever more systemic complexity over time.

Yes. "Are Known", is the key.

 

[atanu]

This argument strikes me as very weak. First, analogies are logical fallacies, because they always break down. Complexions and intelligence are not in the same category of "properties". One is tangible and the other is not.

But that is the point of rebuttal. Atheists club 'intelligence that knows the properties' and the 'known properties' at same level. If you cannot acknowledge that then we are wasting time.

 

[PolyHedral]

That should be correct but I see a few problems.

• Which nature of which Universe. Honestly we know three types of Universe: in waking, in dreaming, and in deep sleep. Which nature is common to all these three perceived Universes?

The nature. We're not entirely sure what the nature precisely is, but the most verified guess we have so far show it's built out of four fields, and the interactions between these produce everything. There's been suggestions that there's a fifth field we haven't found yet, (to explain anomalies like the galaxy rotation problem) but it hasn't been confirmed.

Dreams are simply an illusion that originate in your brain's sensory processing subsystems, and no conscious processing goes on at all in deep sleep. However, the universe proper is still there. After all, you wake up from a loud noise, don't you?

If Universe of sensual grasping is what there is of Universe -- ie., if if it is composed of parts such as you and me and treees, mountains, rivers, planets, etc., then the Universe could not have existed before its components. Like a car does not exist before its components.

That's true, but be very careful what you call a "component." The only things you could justifiably call components of the universe are the four fundamental fields, and even then, there are theories out there that unite the fields into even fewer objects. The holy grail of theoretical physics would be a single object that perfectly describes the entire universe at once, which would render "component" meaningless.

Universe does not come to us and tell us "Hey folks, see this is my nature". It is mind, aided by some unknown power (which some of us want to remove from the scenario) that knows the nature.

What does "know" mean in this context? You don't seem to be using it in the English sense. And it pretty much does, actually. The brain uses the senses to accept data about "reality", and then generalizes and tests this data to build a theory of how reality works. (Though once we got past Newtonian mechanics, we basically had to resort to explicit mathematics rather than internal bookkeeping.)

The same nature is also part of us.

The same nature is all of us. That which describes the universe automatically describes us.

If Universe is a bimbo without intelligence then it will not know its nature. Who knows the nature?

Nobody, at the moment. At least, anyone who does deserves a Nobel prize. We only have simplifications, which can only be used in some circumstances to get accurate results.

 

[atanu]

The nature. We're not entirely sure what the nature precisely is, but the most verified guess we have so far show it's built out of four fields, and the interactions between these produce everything. There's been suggestions that there's a fifth field we haven't found yet, (to explain anomalies like the galaxy rotation problem) but it hasn't been confirmed.

Dreams are simply an illusion that originate in your brain's sensory processing subsystems, and no conscious processing goes on at all in deep sleep. However, the universe proper is still there. After all, you wake up from a loud noise, don't you?

Thank you PolyHedral

The aims of knowing through scientific methods and in philosophy of Vedanta are not same.

The science is known as vijnana (knowledge that accrues after separation of subject and object). vi in vijnana signifies separation. There is another term called jnana, which is the knowledge of subject-object together. As per Upanishads, both are important but vijnana alone cannot take one to the goal of eternal peace-happiness that is considered the invariant goal of every endeavour of every being.

So the goals (or rather the scopes) are apparently different and the premises are. If we agree on this difference and are willing to give unbiased importance to both the vijnana and the jnana, then we can profitably discuss further.

To give an analogy. A geologist may describe a mountain as such in totalty. Or a geologist may create a thin slice and observe a very small part of the rock of mountain under microscope. The desriptions derived from both observations are true in there scopes but an overall understanding entails understanding of diversity and unity together.