Is atheism a threat to humanity?

[TagliatelliMonster]

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me WHY they are ROTTING away right now.

They aren't.
So there's nothing to explain.
Your assumption that there is rotting going on, is incorrect.

Was that a FART, I just heard......ppppppuuuuuuu!!!!!

What are you, like 5?

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Dreams occur in the brain.


What happens when we dream?

Dreams can be monitored by brain activity.

If you are correct, and this "spirit" (whatever it is - since you still haven't properly defined or demonstrated it) leaves the body during sleep, then the brain shouldn't show any activity relating to dreaming.

Conversely, if dreaming happens in the brain, then there should be brain activity.

And there is brain activity, off course.
We actually know quite a few things about it in remarkable detail.


But hey, don't let actual facts and objective evidence get in the way of your fantastical faith based religious claims....

"Dreams can be monitored by brain activity " ? now there's a good one.

No, brain activity ( electrical energy that makes the machine go ) can be monitored,
but they will NEVER lay eyes on a "dream".

Are you feeling ok ?

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

They aren't.
So there's nothing to explain.
Your assumption that there is rotting going on, is incorrect.



What are you, like 5?

Yeah, …+ 60

 

[Satans_Serrated_Edge]

"Dreams can be monitored by brain activity " ? now there's a good one.

No, brain activity ( electrical energy that makes the machine go ) can be monitored,
but they will NEVER lay eyes on a "dream".

Are you feeling ok ?

Google :dream imaging.

Looks like science is closing yet another gap to hide in.

 

[QuestioningMind]

You're right......so tell me, why are you ROTTING away right this very second then ?

I am NOT 'rotting' away and if you'd educate yourself a bit about science you'd know that. So go ahead and take a month or two to read up on biology and then maybe we can have a grown up conversation. Until you do, it's kind of like trying to have an intelligent conversation with a three year old... in other words, a complete waste of my time.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

"Dreams can be monitored by brain activity " ? now there's a good one.

Yes. You can hook up somebody to a machine that monitors brain activity while they sleep and then tell from the activity graph on the monitor wheter or not that person is dreaming.

You can keep on denying it off course. But one can only wonder what you hope to accomplish by denying simple facts.

No, brain activity ( electrical energy that makes the machine go ) can be monitored,
but they will NEVER lay eyes on a "dream".

I never claimed that from such monitoring, one can tell what exactly a person is dreaming about specifically.

Just that dreaming clearly occurs in the brain, not outside of it.
You claimed that "dreaming" is a "spirit leaving the brain". If that were true, there should be no brain activity.
If dreaming, like consiousness, occurs in the brain, then there should be brain activity.

And there IS brain activity. Brain activity in area's of the brain that make total sense even, in explaining dreams. Like how there is much activity in the visual cortex (allowing us to "see" in our dreams), and little in frontal lobes - preventing us to be overly critical of what we're seeing, which is why completely bizar and absurd things in dreams don't register as such in the dream. Yet as soon as we wake up, and the frontal lobes become active again, our first thought is "wow that was a freakishly weird dream!".

So what this point does, is completely blow your point out of the water.

No, dreams are not a "spirit" (whatever that is) "leaving the body" while asleep.
So no, going to sleep is not an example of a "mind" existing absent a brain.

So, try again: do you have a single example of a mind that exists absent a brain?

Are you feeling ok ?

Wonderfull, thanks. You?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Well, then, why not assume that your "trickster universe" is actually inside another trickster universe, and that one is inside yet another, and....Russian dolls to infinity, if you'd like.

The question that remains is this: what is the reason for anyone to imagine that our universe is within a trickster universe running a simulation? That is a though that could not even be had until we knew something about running simulations in the first place, so it is an entirely, 100% human construct -- a bit of slightly amusing imagination for which, while one can't say it isn't so, one can also give no reason to suppose that it might be.

Kick in Occam's Razor, and do the right thing.

So a rule of thought, Occam's Razor, decides what universe is.
""Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the smallest number of assumptions is usually correct. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation."

Yeah, right, it seems you are retreating to rationalism with all your reasons.
You are in effect doing a version of magical thinking: Human reason decides(causes), what the universe is.
No matter what version of an universe you were in, your thoughts would be the same and have no effect on which actual universe you would be in.
As for computer they weren't dreamed up by humans, they were discovered to work. A computer would still work without humans, just like gravity would still be there.

So try again, if your best arguments are that computers only exist, because they are a pure idea from the human and you have to use philosophy against philosophy.
We are doing the limits of reason and knowledge and it appears you don't like that.
What you reason in your mind, doesn't cause the universe to behave at the fundamental level based on, what you reason to be the right thing.
That apparently applies to religious believers and non-believers alike. Didn't you know that?

I am in doing a broad reductio ad absurdum on the limits of what reasons can do.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So a rule of thought, Occam's Razor, decides what universe is.
""Occam's razor (or Ockham's razor) is a principle from philosophy. Suppose there exist two explanations for an occurrence. In this case the one that requires the smallest number of assumptions is usually correct. Another way of saying it is that the more assumptions you have to make, the more unlikely an explanation."

Yeah, right, it seems you are retreating to rationalism with all your reasons.
You are in effect doing a version of magical thinking: Human reason decides(causes), what the universe is.
No matter what version of an universe you were in, your thoughts would be the same and have no effect on which actual universe you would be in.
As for computer they weren't dreamed up by humans, they were discovered to work. A computer would still work without humans, just like gravity would still be there.

So try again, if your best arguments are that computers only exist, because they are a pure idea from the human and you have to use philosophy against philosophy.
We are doing the limits of reason and knowledge and it appears you don't like that.
What you reason in your mind, doesn't cause the universe to behave at the fundamental level based on, what you reason to be the right thing.
That apparently applies to religious believers and non-believers alike. Didn't you know that?

I am in doing a broad reductio ad absurdum on the limits of what reasons can do.

And the universe and everything it contains, including our memories of having lived our entire lives, could have been created Last Thursday by the magical interdimensional rainbow eating unicorn.

What is the point of such brainfarts?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

And the universe and everything it contains, including our memories of having lived our entire lives, could have been created Last Thursday by the magical interdimensional rainbow eating unicorn.

What is the point of such brainfarts?

That there is a limit to knowledge?!! I am a skeptic. That is how general skeptics approach knowledge. They try to find the limits.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That there is a limit to knowledge?!! I am a skeptic. That is how general skeptics approach knowledge. They try to find the limits.

Still not seeing what the point is.

If your only point is that knowledge has limits, then just say that instead of obsessively posting endless streams of arguing an unfalsifiable, undemonstrable idea, the likes of which are potentially infinite in number - only really restricted by imagination.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Still not seeing what the point is.

If your only point is that knowledge has limits, then just say that instead of obsessively posting endless streams of arguing an unfalsifiable, undemonstrable idea, the likes of which are potentially infinite in number - only really restricted by imagination.

So know I am going to say something. This is true, because I say so!!!
Now you would't accept that. You would want more that. So pretend I say "Knowledge has limits" and you answer "How do you explain that?"
And now we are here.

So something from a scientist:
"Astronomer William Keel explains:

The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."

Did you notice explains? Did you notice the end: In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists. Focus on the part that "... is playing fair with scientists."
Now explain how we got to there, that science uses philosophy.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

First of all, I really don't require any additional explanation to understand that the answers to unfalsifiable questions are unknowable.

So know I am going to say something. This is true, because I say so!!!
Now you would't accept that. You would want more that. So pretend I say "Knowledge has limits" and you answer "How do you explain that?"
And now we are here.

So something from a scientist:
"Astronomer William Keel explains:

The cosmological principle is usually stated formally as 'Viewed on a sufficiently large scale, the properties of the universe are the same for all observers.' This amounts to the strongly philosophical statement that the part of the universe which we can see is a fair sample, and that the same physical laws apply throughout. In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists."

Did you notice explains? Did you notice the end: In essence, this in a sense says that the universe is knowable and is playing fair with scientists. Focus on the part that "... is playing fair with scientists."
Now explain how we got to there, that science uses philosophy.

Easy: It works.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

First of all, I really don't require any additional explanation to understand that the answers to unfalsifiable questions are unknowable.


Easy: It works.

No, not without limits. Check out methodological naturalism and this.
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do
Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations
How come a site written by scientists says that?

What reality really is independent of your mind is unfalsifiable BTW and thus unknowable.

Read up on Agrippa the Skeptic's 5 tropes.
And we end here:
"Cognitive relativism consists of two claims:
(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;
(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others."
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Those 3 bold parts are connected to your point of being unfalsifiable and thus unknowable.

Since you understand science, you should know that. You do know it, right?

Now this is conditional on the fact, that the apparent universe stays the same. Do you know, how come, I use a conditional? All knowledge is conditional that the universe is fair and knowable. And that can only be believed or taken for granted. Unless the universe changes and we become Gods.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

That there is a limit to knowledge?!! I am a skeptic. That is how general skeptics approach knowledge. They try to find the limits.

You do NOT find limits to knowledge by pretending that all sorts of really, really doubtful things might be true. Therefore, I doubt that you really are a skeptic.

If you think you have some valid reason to suppose that you and I (and everyone else here) are merely simulations being run be some other entity, then by all means show us your reasons, and we can discuss them. I am not aware of any, myself, and therefore cannot offer any up for discussion -- but since you keep insisting, then I have to assume you believe you have reason to.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

As for computer they weren't dreamed up by humans, they were discovered to work. A computer would still work without humans, just like gravity would still be there.

I do beg your pardon, but WHAT? That is just about the most inane, silliest comments I think I've ever seen -- even on a religious forum!

You might try looking up "history of the computer," starting perhaps with Jacquard's punched cards in 1801, Babbage's Difference Engine in 1822, Herman Hollerith's punch card machine that tabulated the 1890 US census, 1944's ENIAC, which filled a 20X40 room and had 18,000 vacuum tubes (and far less processing power than a Fitbit that sits on your wrist).

Computers are totally and completely a human invention!

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

I am NOT 'rotting' away and if you'd educate yourself a bit about science you'd know that. So go ahead and take a month or two to read up on biology and then maybe we can have a grown up conversation. Until you do, it's kind of like trying to have an intelligent conversation with a three year old... in other words, a complete waste of my time.

don't forget the
de- ODOR- ant

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No, not without limits. Check out methodological naturalism and this.
Science has limits: A few things that science does not do
Science doesn't draw conclusions about supernatural explanations
How come a site written by scientists says that?

Because it's true. The supernatural is indistinguishable from imagination. How could any method (science or otherwise) draw proper conclusions about it?

This doesn't change anything about the fact that science works, when it comes to explaining phenomena of reality. You know, things with actual manifestation in the universe. Things that ARE distinguishable from imagination.

What reality really is independent of your mind is unfalsifiable BTW and thus unknowable.

Read up on Agrippa the Skeptic's 5 tropes.
And we end here:
"Cognitive relativism consists of two claims:
(1) The truth-value of any statement is always relative to some particular standpoint;
(2) No standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others."
Cognitive Relativism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Those 3 bold parts are connected to your point of being unfalsifiable and thus unknowable.

Since you understand science, you should know that. You do know it, right?

Now this is conditional on the fact, that the apparent universe stays the same. Do you know, how come, I use a conditional? All knowledge is conditional that the universe is fair and knowable. And that can only be believed or taken for granted. Unless the universe changes and we become Gods.

I see no merrit in your obsession with unknowable / unfalsifiable ideas.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

don't forget the
de- ODOR- ant

You're being extremely silly

 

[WhyIsThatSo]

Yes. You can hook up somebody to a machine that monitors brain activity while they sleep and then tell from the activity graph on the monitor wheter or not that person is dreaming.

You can keep on denying it off course. But one can only wonder what you hope to accomplish by denying simple facts.



I never claimed that from such monitoring, one can tell what exactly a person is dreaming about specifically.

Just that dreaming clearly occurs in the brain, not outside of it.
You claimed that "dreaming" is a "spirit leaving the brain". If that were true, there should be no brain activity.
If dreaming, like consiousness, occurs in the brain, then there should be brain activity.

And there IS brain activity. Brain activity in area's of the brain that make total sense even, in explaining dreams. Like how there is much activity in the visual cortex (allowing us to "see" in our dreams), and little in frontal lobes - preventing us to be overly critical of what we're seeing, which is why completely bizar and absurd things in dreams don't register as such in the dream. Yet as soon as we wake up, and the frontal lobes become active again, our first thought is "wow that was a freakishly weird dream!".

So what this point does, is completely blow your point out of the water.

No, dreams are not a "spirit" (whatever that is) "leaving the body" while asleep.
So no, going to sleep is not an example of a "mind" existing absent a brain.

So, try again: do you have a single example of a mind that exists absent a brain?



Wonderfull, thanks. You?

Try telling that nonsense to the MILLIONS of people around the world who can go to sleep at night
and go CONSCIOUSLY to any physical destination on this planet, or IN THIS UNIVERSE,
and come back into their bodies before dawn, and tell you all about it...….VARIFIABLE.

Also......your friendly neighborhood Federal US Government of the United States of America,
has been doing it for YEARS, only they're not going to let YOU in on it.

you don't get out much.....do you ?

 

[We Never Know]

We humans obviously have two sides to our moral nature, good and bad. The good side is guided by conscience (moral intuition). We are born with the basic structure.

The notion that our moral judgments are the product of our reasoning minds is a popular myth. The myth allows religious leaders to claim that they can teach moral conduct. The fact is that we are born knowing, for example, that it is wrong to intentionally harm innocent people. This prohibition covers all manner of acts: killing, theft, slavery, the treatment of women and so on.

Happily, conscience is winning the battle. The good side is winning. We humans are making moral progress. We are treating each other better now than at any time in our past.

The fact is that our opinions on religion, believer or non-believer, have no effect on the moral future of our species. If they did, we would still be stuck with the morals of the 2,000 year-old cultures depicted in the Torah, the Bible, the Quran and other old texts. Slavery would still be condoned, for example.

IMO people don't need religion to have morals. If they can't determine right from wrong/good from bad, they lack empathy, not religion.