Please try to disprove anything I believe.

[Rick O'Shez]

Like i said, what makes the universe eternal?

Isn't Brahman eternal though?

PS I had to disagree with something in the thread.

 

[Augustus]

I believe that human morality is innate in most human beings.

What do you mean by this (I assume you don't mean it as a tautology)?

And what is your evidence?

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

What do you mean by this (I assume you don't mean it as a tautology)?

And what is your evidence?

I believe that most humans have an innate sense of right and wrong.

I think that similar culture and psychological functions shows this.

 

[Terese]

No energy is eternal.

Yes, energy is eternal. This doesn't invalidate my claim. Atoms are the creative power of the Lord. The universe is a creation of energy. Like i said, it was created, so it will die. If you burn a paper, the paper is gone, but the atoms comprising the paper will be very much there.

Isn't Brahman eternal though?

PS I had to disagree with something in the thread.

Yep. Brahman is divine in nature, and will never die. Everything that is born out of our universe is mortal, including the universe, but the Lord comprising the universe will not, as energy can never be created nor destroyed.

The temporal will live and die.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

1. I do not believe there is evidence for a personal god.

2. I do not believe that faith is a reliable means of gaining information or insight.

3. I believe the universe is made solely of energy.

4. I believe the universe is eternal.

5. I believe that human morality is innate in most human beings.

6. Is that a good starting point?

1. God IS life. You are part of life; and, life is a part of you. Everything and everything and living as well as the universe is life.

If you love life (not person) than you love a "personal" god (as defined above). If you love your life it is personal. The people who love you, your friends, what you say you do for others and for yourself, it is all personal.

You cant separate yourself from god (above). If so, you would not exist.

If you mean an anamorphic god, I dont believe god exists in those ways. So, cant disprove that.

2. Faith is trust. If you read something factual and you say "oh! thatz true, you are puting faith in what that author says about X. If you dont have faith, you gain no knowedge for yourself.

3. Thats common fact not a spiritual claim

4. Thats common fact. The universe will be here for years after humans die. Not a spiritual claim

5. If not, why would people believe in god? Why would you care about what we aay? Why be motivated to live?

6. Yep.

 

[1137]

I think proof is a tricky thing. When I'm discussing my beliefs with people I'll share evidence and arguments, but proof is something very conclusive. Most of the time we cannot achieve it. Take something largely accepted such as big bang theory. It's been supported by lots of evidence and accepted for a long time. However, it isn't necessarily proven. What we've done is weigh evidence and mixed it with reason to come to a possible conclusion. More interestingly, the evidence that many believe "proves" big bang theory can be interpreted other ways, such as big crunch or even divine creation.

Let's look at another example that addresses your first belief, that there is no evidence for god. This is a point that many people disagree on, and one argument really sticks out in my mind: personal experience. I understand the inability to use subjective experience as proof, but we're talking more about a piece of evidence. Many people will argue that the experience is created by the brain, but it's something that cannot be proven. We can scan people's brains during prayer or mediation and see the brain light up in areas, which some interpret as evidence that religious experience is brain induced. But of you scan the brain of someone your stabbing with a needle, the brain also lights up. This doesn't imply the pain is made up.

Pain itself is the best example to support using experience as evidence, and it's how half of the field of medicine works. Take me, for example, who has a lot of unidentified issues. My pain is real, but no cause has been found. Brain scans or physiological tests will show pain, despite nothing seeming wrong physically. In medicine, this is not immediately pushed off to being all in ones head, because experiences arise from somewhere. It's the same for religious experience. Again this isn't proof through,it comes down to an interpretation of evidence.

Edit: @Taylor Seraphim , you may have missed this post.

 

[Augustus]

I believe that most humans have an innate sense of right and wrong.

I think that similar culture and psychological functions shows this.

Their sense of right and wrong though doesn't bear any resemblance to 'humanistic' values though.

If we are to base our analysis on reason rather than faith/wishful thinking, that is the only conclusion we can come to. The sheer scale of evidence against your viewpoint is overwhelming.

An example that I saw earlier today:



This happy little fellow (who I think is wonderful) is a 19thC skull rack, which would be given pride of place in the home and was used for storing the skulls of all of the people you had killed which showed how much of a man you were and thus how worthy of respect/status you and your family were.

Roman fathers often left their babies to die in the streets if they didn't fancy the look of them. Spartans took children from their families to be brutally trained by the state as killers. Ottomans kidnapped Christian children and exported them to become slave soldiers. Slavery existed in all societies anyway, and still does in many. Intelligent people have come up with ingenious methods of torture. Carpet bombing of civilians was a legitimate military tactic of Western countries in the 20th C, etc. etc. etc.

We might have some morality about not harming people who don't 'deserve it', the problem is that we are very good at creating reasons why people do indeed 'deserve it'.

Who 'deserves it' is a product of society, so claiming we have some innate humanistic morals seems to me to just be something people would like to think was true, despite the paucity of evidence in favour of it.

Morality comes from the needs of the society and its environment, and if there is some innate morality (which is plausible) it is nothing like modern humanism.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I do not believe there is evidence for a personal god.

I do not believe that faith is a reliable means of gaining information or insight.

I believe the universe is made solely of energy.

I believe the universe is eternal.

I believe that human morality is innate in most human beings.

Is that a good starting point?

I do not necessarily disagree, but by your request I am attacking your views. You may thank me.

• "I do not believe there is evidence for a personal god." -- except that there are billions who believe otherwise, so you are discounting them as evidence
• "I do not believe that faith is a reliable means of gaining information or insight." -- so you believe there are reliable means of gaining insights?
• "I believe the universe is made solely of energy." -- nonsense. Its clearly made of information. If it were made of energy then black holes couldn't exist.
• "I believe the universe is eternal." -- without clarifying what you think about the nature of time I don't know what you mean by eternal
• "I believe that human morality is innate in most human beings." -- human morality requires more than one human being, so it exists among humans not in each human. That seems to be the cause of many moral disagreements.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Proof this belief is wrong; http://www.religiousforums.com/threads/rf-rules.170244/

How does that relate to the OP?

 

[Tomorrows_Child]

I do not believe there is evidence for a personal god.

I do not believe that faith is a reliable means of gaining information or insight.

I believe the universe is made solely of energy.

I believe the universe is eternal.

I believe that human morality is innate in most human beings.

Is that a good starting point?

Modern science disproves this and I guess you are a believer in science?

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Yes, energy is eternal. This doesn't invalidate my claim. Atoms are the creative power of the Lord. The universe is a creation of energy. Like i said, it was created, so it will die. If you burn a paper, the paper is gone, but the atoms comprising the paper will be very much there.

But if energy is enteral and all things are formed of energy. Then that means the universe is eternal.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

How does that relate to the OP?

He was saying my claim that nothing is off limits to ask me is wrong.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Modern science disproves this and I guess you are a believer in science?

Can you show me evidence that modern science disproves this?

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

except that there are billions who believe otherwise, so you are discounting them as evidence

That is a logical infallacy called: Argumentum ad populum

Numbers do not determine if something is correct.

do not believe that faith is a reliable means of gaining information or insight." -- so you believe there are reliable means of gaining insights?

Yes.

I believe the universe is made solely of energy." -- nonsense. Its clearly made of information. If it were made of energy then black holes couldn't exist.

Number 1: Please prove it is made of infroamtion.

Number 2: Black holes are a phenomena of the laws of gravity created by large amounts of energy occupying a single point in space.

"I believe the universe is eternal." -- without clarifying what you think about the nature of time I don't know what you mean by eternal

Time is a perception made by the speed of reactions.

"I believe that human morality is innate in most human beings." -- human morality requires more than one human being, so it exists among humans not in each human. That seems to be the cause of many moral disagreements.

Are you claiming that a hermit could not be moral?

 

[Brickjectivity]

That is a logical infallacy called: Argumentum ad populum

Numbers do not determine if something is correct.

I said you discounted them as evidence, not that it was conclusive evidence. You made the claim that there was no evidence, yet there were clearly billions who believed in a divine being. Therefore you made an assumption and also argued that evidence did not exist, but it clearly did.

Yes.

So you say there are reliable means of gaining insight, but that is probably merely a belief. How do you know we aren't inside of some large simulator or dream? Its merely an assumption on your part.

Number 1: Please prove it is made of infroamtion.

Number 2: Black holes are a phenomena of the laws of gravity created by large amounts of energy occupying a single point in space.

1. It is information, because only information is truly indestructible and in-create. Matter is destroyed at the boundaries of black holes, but information is not. In addition, simulations and Math show that the information remains on the surface of the black hole and is not destroyed, and information provides a better model of reality than energy that comes from nothing and for no reason.
2. Black holes and gravity are constructs -- ideas which attempt to explain behaviors. Gravity waves are difficult if not impossible to detect and still theoretical. Lets not get ahead of ourselves with pretending they are known quantities caused by comprehended laws of physics. Within a black hole the laws of Physics appear not to exist at all, so what we observe is that gravity is an effect that we do not yet understand as are time and space quantities that we cannot truly comprehend.

Time is a perception made by the speed of reactions.

Time is a perception. That much we know. Reactions are also a perception, because they measure time which is a perception. Time is a dimension. Movement is not real. Zeno has not ceased to be. He is simply in another piece of time than we are, because time is a dimension.

Are you claiming that a hermit could not be moral?

I claim that morality is social, and it is. That means a hermit is amoral, neither moral nor immoral except in relation to someone else. What need do they have for any morality unless it has to do with thinking about or communicating with other people? A hermit merely survives. They can't really do anything moral.

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

I said you discounted them as evidence, not that it was conclusive evidence. You made the claim that there was no evidence, yet there were clearly billions who believed in a divine being. Therefore you made an assumption and also argued that evidence did not exist, but it clearly did.

There is no evidence as that is not evidence.

As you seem to not know what evidence means let me define it for you.

Evidance: something which shows that something else exists or is true

If popularity is evidence then that would indicate that a religion's popularity determines if is true and your religion has not always been the most popular.

So you say there are reliable means of gaining insight, but that is probably merely a belief. How do you know we aren't inside of some large simulator or dream? Its merely an assumption on your part.

Incorrect, I am saying that based on predictive qualities and reliability of logic, it is a reliable means of insight.

1. It is information, because only information is truly indestructible and in-create. Matter is destroyed at the boundaries of black holes, but information is not. In addition, simulations and Math show that the information remains on the surface of the black hole and is not destroyed, and information provides a better model of reality than energy that comes from nothing and for no reason.
2. Black holes and gravity are constructs -- ideas which attempt to explain behaviors. Gravity waves are difficult if not impossible to detect and still theoretical. Lets not get ahead of ourselves with pretending they are known quantities caused by comprehended laws of physics. Within a black hole the laws of Physics appear not to exist at all, so what we observe is that gravity is an effect that we do not yet understand as are time and space quantities that we cannot truly comprehend.

1. Incorrect, information can be destroyed by burning a book or causing amnesia.

2. Theoretical does not mean we are not sure it is true, it means we are mostly sure it is true.

I claim that morality is social, and it is. That means a hermit is amoral, neither moral nor immoral except in relation to someone else. What need do they have for any morality unless it has to do with thinking about or communicating with other people? A hermit merely survives. They can't really do anything moral.

Is torturing another animal immoral?

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

Sorry missed this one.

Time is a perception. That much we know. Reactions are also a perception, because they measure time which is a perception. Time is a dimension. Movement is not real. Zeno has not ceased to be. He is simply in another piece of time than we are, because time is a dimension.

Reactions do not measure time.

 

[Geoff-Allen]

You have decided God doesn't exist because you feel there is no evidence.

Just curious - what WOULD be sufficient "evidence" in your mind?

Cheers

 

[Taylor Seraphim]

You have decided God doesn't exist because you feel there is no evidence.

Just curious - what WOULD be sufficient "evidence" in your mind?

Cheers

Undeniable proof.

 

[Brickjectivity]

There is no evidence as that is not evidence.

As you seem to not know what evidence means let me define it for you.

Evidance: something which shows that something else exists or is true

If popularity is evidence then that would indicate that a religion's popularity determines if is true and your religion has not always been the most popular.

I do not wish to suggest that popularity determines truth -- no not at all. I merely say that people do believe, and that is evidence though not conclusive evidence. Just because some evidence is not conclusive does not make it non-evident. People believe in God, and that is a factor to be considered. They exist, and they say God exists.

Incorrect, I am saying that based on predictive qualities and reliability of logic, it is a reliable means of insight.

By 'Predictive qualities and reliability of logic' you refer to induction? I also like induction, but I do not pretend to know for certain that it is always correct. It is limited, because we cannot prove what happens in perpetuity, no matter how repeatable the object appears to be.

1. Incorrect, information can be destroyed by burning a book or causing amnesia.

2. Theoretical does not mean we are not sure it is true, it means we are mostly sure it is true.

1. The information is not in need of a book for sustenance. Only you need the book. Information exists without books.
2. Oh, I understand that gravity is a law in the sense that it is something we cannot change, but we are talking about the nature of reality. The theory of reality is not established. Information is the best explanation of existence, not energy. Energy by definition ought not to exist, because the Laws of Entropy imply that it must always decrease, yet it appears to exist. The theories to which you allude cannot explain the existence of energy, so they are flawed. Only information explains the universe's existence.

Is torturing another animal immoral?

That is a social judgment, or are you saying that animals cannot form a society? They can, and we are part of that society. If you admit that torturing animals is wrong you innately agree that morality is social.