Comments by Downunder
51. Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?
Comment #98850 by Downunder on December 14, 2007 at 4:51 pm
How can *you* tell me about it then, are you *no one*?
52. Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?
Comment #98614 by Downunder on December 14, 2007 at 12:04 am
Diacanu.
God does not exist. Water from your tap is not polluted, positively safe to drink? Evidence? Don't be daft.
53. Where Is Atheism When Bad Things Happen?
Comment #98605 by Downunder on December 13, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Re Don_Quix's posts76, 105, etc. and most of the others around them; DQ says "there is no soul, no God....., there is just biological life....., we are here to reproduce...!" I wonder, are we? DQ: "we are here because we are here." I say not quite, because a prerequisite is that our parent's genetic material produced cells, which used molecules, food, as building blocks until our basic body was ready for launching. At birth LIFE, our freewill and budding human intelligence entered. Is God involved? Who knows? I, for at least one, have as yet not heard of (to me) reliable evidence but may be RD and such searchers will produce such evidence. Sofar the alleged evidence from the various religions has not passed my test. Do we have a reason for our existence? Once we have life, our parents and the environment impress on us methods for our existence. The primary task is hunting & gathering naturally interrupted by having a break now & again. While admiring the scenery the human mind & free will dream-up what to do next......and learn that there are other humans and the environment to respect & cooperate with or fight with. The latter seems to have been an historically popular pastime. Again IMO nothing to do with God; it is our own free will, our choice or our elected leaders' choice.
On DEATH , life gets out, leaving behind our body, which suddenly has then become a mere heap of useless cells disintegrating into molecules, turning back into dust from whence it came.
Now comes my enormous opinion to prod you all: before the moment of death, life can be believed to be still there; indeed science can test that life is still there. Can we see life? Of course not; life is an abstract concept. We cannot see life but we can sense it is still there. Note that we do then believe our own unscientific, merely sensed observation of an abstract concept. Life is not made of any matter known to us. The minutes tick by while we observe the dying body until the moment arrives that we do observe that life has gone, and we confirm it by a medical, scientifically reliable test. I asked myself then WHERE did that life go to, and logically also: where did life come from in the first place at birth? Don't tell me that life comes from the parents. Life enters at, or soon after birth. I have observed that convincingly with animals on our farm. If you do not believe me, think about a seed, you may have grown say radishes. You bought a packet of seed, viable seed, meaning like an unborn animal not having life yet but the genes are ready, not dried out but rearing to go, waiting for the encouraging environment, for a plant water, for an animal air, to kick-start its own life. Where does that life come from? To the best of my knowledge, nobody knows, but it must come from and go back to somewhere; it is an abstract but it is real! I have thus come to the simplistic conclusion that life is not from any of the dimensions that we, mere globetrotters, are familiar with or can comprehend. Dimensions such as infinity, further and further away, not just on the increasing scale but also smaller and smaller. Life can thus be right around us, anywhere, may not require any space, nor time.
Does God fit into that scene? Please yourself, you are an intelligent being and we know that our intelligence is limited. We know that the human mind in savants reveals seemingly incredible possibilities. Some people want, need a God and tradition of fairy tales has evolved over countless generations. Some nice tales, some awful and frightening tales, and various Gods were recorded in various books in various places by various societies with various moral codes.
I believe that we are here to do whatever we want but it is crystal clear to me from having been here for a long time, that we must behave ourselves, not for God but for our own mutually best interests. If there is a time of taking a tally, it will be done by our self at the moment of death when time will cease to be relevant.
54. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins
Comment #98070 by Downunder on December 13, 2007 at 3:31 am
Re post 336 FatherMike's; what ails you? Can't you read? I looked up your 1st post 297 and found the very next posts 298, 299, 300, 301 and it did not end there, 309, 314 and several more after your cry in 336. IMO most of RD's threads are a fine "Rational Debate". Ponder on this gem (from post 17) "Atheism becomes a belief system when bold becomes a hair colour."
55. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins
Comment #97966 by Downunder on December 12, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Why are the Pope and his spokesperson Jona and so many posters here so in-depth concerned with Hitler, Stalin, etc? We all know sufficient about them to be pleased that they are dead and gone. Have we learned a lesson from their lives? Let us apply it. Let us promote discussion and negotiation to stop fighting in wars, in countries, in cities, in neighbourhoods, in families. Let us criticise loudly what our own current leaders do. They are misleading us most of the time. Stop them, force them to speak the truth to negotiate and discuss.
56. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father
Comment #97944 by Downunder on December 12, 2007 at 9:33 pm
Re post47 Styrer's. I prefer your stance and will excuse epeeist for taking a defensive stance. I find it simply stupid for any country to accept immigrants (I experienced it twice) without insisting that they must "do as the Romans do". Assimilation is of mutual benefit. I blame the father for creating the problem. As the head of the family in his religion, he should not have placed his family in an environment that clashes with his moral code. It is like putting a child beside a newspaper with a box of matches, or giving Adam & Eve a nice apple tree, or creating man with in-built faults and then sacrificing your son to try and correct the situation knowing full well that he would be crucified; as the majority of us have been led to believe !
57. Girl, 16, dies after hijab dispute with father
Comment #97351 by Downunder on December 12, 2007 at 12:00 am
Re post 5 Pakbabydoll and 7 Cerberus; any indoctrination, glorification or brainwashing, be it religion, politics, business, etc. will produce some fanatics with warped/simple minds, etc. Even in sport some spectators go into a frenzy ! What is the cure? Jails are an easy way out but objectively are stupid, achieve little for the cost and pain involved for both offenders and offended. Common sense tells me that for minor offences punishment "in kind", restitution, etc. should be applied. For major offences against the law (or humanity) of the society in which the offender lives or in which the offence was committed, and if the offender is obviously, positively guilty, I suggest a nice but "laced" last supper, without any media hype; not for punishment or revenge but simply because the offender by his/her own free has made a war-like act against that society. In war, killing of the enemy is condoned by all societies as far as I'm aware. Moreover, anyone who wants to live in whichever society, should "do as the Romans do" or expect to be send back to wherever they came from. As a rule, simple common sense should apply, psychological excuses may apply but only if obvious to all, not just to the experts.
58. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins
Comment #96799 by Downunder on December 10, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Wise thoughts Atticus.
59. An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins
Comment #96794 by Downunder on December 10, 2007 at 11:20 pm
I have quickly read this whole thread and made some notes for comments as I went through the intro. By the time I reached post 124 all had been said, some far superior and quicker than mine would be.
The closing para of post 17 from Matt7895 hits the bullseye and would be a good addendum to the masterly effort in post41 fromAtticus_of_Amber, emailed in 61 and receipted in 109. Please keep us informed Atticus. Would you like us to copy yours and flood the Morris site at fox? Dr Benway'S post81; yes, let us think for ourselves, the problem is "man is like sheep", sheep are easily led astray, the curse of democracies; but nothing is perfect in this world. Even God cannot be a "perfection" contender because he has as yet not shown up in the queue.
Assuming that, as supporters of RD, we want to try and improve our world, we must realise that (wiki) 80% of the population is comprised in Christian, Islam, Buddhist and Hindu religions, believing to have received instructions from some intangible being; they will take some convincing about the errors of their precious religious GPS! Obviously the effort must go gently but cleverly, RD is a proven Master in that. Science may eventually produce a snowball effect and accelerate things.
60. The Pagan Christ
Comment #95998 by Downunder on December 9, 2007 at 4:40 pm
Re post 123, thank you steve99 for your sound advice which I followed up instantly.
61. The Pagan Christ
Comment #95748 by Downunder on December 9, 2007 at 5:20 am
Re AHD's post89#95336 in The Pagan Christ thread. Thank you for your reply. I don't know where you obtained your ideas from about the Jesuit teaching methods but that does not matter now because your reply is disappointing and several posters have already taken you to task (while we slept on this side of the globe) because you cannot bring yourself to say what life is, without bringing your God. Don't you think outside the square? Do you look at life only through religiously coloured glasses? Have you not thought about what our forefathers successively believed in the several millennia preceding us and at different parts of the globe, long before missionary zealots began to indoctrinate those parts? Yes "natives" feel an apparent instinctive urge to respect something beyond their comprehension in their environment: e.g. the sun for the Egyptians3000BC and the Mexican Maya 1000 BC, and now in 2007AD a rumbling volcano in Indonesia. Seeing that you are not committing yourself about life, I'll be so bold as to give my ideas. We must leave out your God because the God concept is entirely man made, has evolved from some community in the middle east; a Pope (blessed be his soul) hung the world's calendar on an assumed date/year of the birth of a Jesus, who must have been an outstandingly fine man to have earned entry in historical documents if we can believe them. We are led to believe that he was born from a woman, how human can you get?
My question about life is of utmost importance for our world because religions exert such a large indoctrinating power that common sense, respect for nature, respect for life of man, flora and fauna has been, and still is being sacrificed in the name of religions, e.g. now Bush versus Islam.
While just having a coffee break I watched briefly this Sunday morning's TV documentary, which mentioned that the Catholic Church in Australia is running out of priests. The current average age of the priests is over 60 and each caters for an average of 4000 people. That fits my point. The current generations of Catholics have stopped going to church. In my own family of 4 children and 7 grandchildren (all adults now), none go to church. Religion has been replaced through the media's brainwashing about the environment e.g. by the ad nauseam TV pictures of baby seals being clubbed to death in front of a camera and dolphins frustrated by plastic shopping bags, eggs from henpecked caged chickens, meat from chickens kept in sheds, whale killing by Japan, etc. The propaganda by the Greens has made inroads on religions. The intro to this thread referred to a Canadian audio. I had a long look, skipped forward a couple of times but noted that Aussie Peter Singer put some question to RD. Prof Singer makes me sick. Some science qualifications must qualify him to professorial level, but I have heard him several times: the man talks too much on the news media; he 'makes' news, throws in a bit of science and then goes off on a tangent with some fanatical ideas; e.g. advocating being a vegetarian and don't eat meat but respect the animal's life, allegations that animal factories produce pollution and cause global warming and he adds climate change. How fanatic can you get; he is making me feel guilty to cut a lettuce in the garden because the stalk will ooze white lettuce blood. Will I have caused the plant some pain? Doesn't Singer know that in nature many animals kill other animals? Has he nothing more urgent and useful to apply his mind to? I wish he would apply his public speaking abilities to steer the world towards respect for human life and to not destroy hard earned infrastructure. He is a dangerous cookie. He and any vegetarians are welcome to not eat whatever, but I object to having them ram their twisted ideas down my throat and spoil my food. We have to eat; must we now enjoy it according to Singer's scriptures? It seems common sense to me that we should endeavour to grow whatever we wish to eat (solong as we do it humanely, including intense farming of animals), rather than depleting the natural fauna of land and sea. Obviously, animals would not be growing efficiently if they were not in a for-them-pleasant and healthy environment. During some stage of my life my office was on the 17th floor; nobody ever asked me if I was satisfied with my environment. I have a free will but was not free to leave; I would have lost my job, my income, food for my family, etc. The public and in particular the vulnerable younger generation, has and is being misled and brainwashed by one-sided publicity of videos taken in badly run farming sheds. Such publicity should be subject to close scrutiny and outlawed if bordering on the fanatic.
A new religion with a modern church in Sydney filled with an excited young congregation has been featured in the news showing a visit by our (now dethroned) Prime Minister and several politicians. The church-full of teenagers is evidence to me that the greenie feeling, which replaced religion has left an unfilled gap. Whether we like it or not, the public wants to be led like sheep, they feel an instinctive need to be "in touch" with the supernatural, praying to a God! Religions are needed to guide them. The world's long established religions (Christian33%, Islam21%, Hindu14%, Bhuddist12%) have not kept abreast of the scientific developments, which the current generations have grown up with. The God-fearing majority with their relentless warmongering has been showing disrespect for "life", and some fanatics such as the anti-abortionists, the animal liberators and the vegetarians have gone to the other extreme. I am concerned a priori about the life in living humans!
From all this, AHD, you may gather that I have concluded that God is a human invention evolved and refined over 1000's of years by 100's of generations and we humans find it useful to have an imaginary picture of that invisible power in nature. A power that man instinctively feels to be present whenever under extreme pressure. Science is aware of dimensions beyond our comprehension, but it remains to be seen if science will ever fathom them out. One such dimension to me is life. It is easy to say that an individual's life comes at birth and disappears at death. Most people do not even think about it or are not bothered about it. For me, having observed, suffered, experienced and enjoyed so much in this world, I have come to the conclusion that good and bad in life does only make sense if each individual will be "taking stock" at the instant after death. That instant is beyond our senses and beyond our dimensions. It is not in our sense of time, so we cannot know what it is like. The human authors and translators of Holy Books have endeavored to create the mental picture of a heaven and hell. If one wants to be of simple or of gullible mind, one is free to believe it, and I observe that the superior minded bullies use the "heaven and hell" concept to impose their usually selfish objectives onto the lower minded majorities. This has created excessive inequalities, the haves and the have-nots, poverty and unbridled riches, wars, killing of conscripted soldiers and innocents and wanton destruction of assets, enticing young people to "serve the nation" by brainwashing them, teaching them to kill efficiently, exerting pain on the alleged enemy is a virtue and so is then their voluntarily going to war.
Listening to the daily news, there is hardly any item which in one aspect or another does not raise my heckles. The politicians lie, distort or speak half-truths. The bureaucracy panders to the politicians whose most appreciated asset appears to be verbosity. Quantity rules, quality is not appreciated, also evident from the advertising industry. Public funds are squandered. Public Companies appoint and pay their own so-called "independent" auditors and expert advisors who will of course "dance to the piper's tune", far from being independent.
Even if there were a God, I do not believe that a God has anything to do with the world. To me the concept of life may be God stripped of all the human connotations. The evidence of life makes me believe that time and space do not apply to the unfathomable dimensions of the universe. Life comes from and returns to the universe. From where and to where in the universe is a non-applicable question. Natural disasters are part of the universe, so is Global Warming i.e. beyond human control. Climate change is evidence of global warming. Should we therefore pollute our world? Stupid question!
I apologise for jumping around somewhat in this epistle but it had to be composed in bits and pieces while the internet was painfully slow today, may be because it is Sunday, 2min before Monday to be precise.
62. The Pagan Christ
Comment #95331 by Downunder on December 8, 2007 at 2:41 am
Re Goldy's post 88, that echoes my instant reaction and AHD appears to be ignoring my specific request to NOT bring the bible. My reason is that I have seen so many of Dianelos' posts who has an astounding mind but goes so deep that he trots out his God to keep his head above water, leaving the rest of us floundering. Please AHD, leave God out of it because it will kill the discussion.
63. The Pagan Christ
Comment #95273 by Downunder on December 7, 2007 at 8:33 pm
re post81; you raise a pertinent point. ADH's "bear with me" has me still holding my breath since his post 74 on the "Interview with Hitchens" thread!
64. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster
Comment #94859 by Downunder on December 6, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Dear Goldy, re your post 445; are you doing a George Bush, isolating Louise and closing the gate on her because she does not fall into line? Relax, have a cuppa. It would be a dull world if "Little boxes on the hillside......." were indeed......."all just the same".
Comment #94515 by Downunder on December 5, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Thanks Northern Bright post 86, gr8hands 90 and Agrajag 93 for your replies to my 76, my atheist's Xmassie predicament. I felt it to be somewhat hypocritical to mail out Xmas crib-cards (with Xmas tree on rear) having tossed my faith. I will now relax in the belief that it just belongs with the season, without any histo(e)rical connotations. Handel's Messiah thrills me and I don't mind music written around a story, as Operas are. Handel and Bach make me wonder why even these greatest artistic minds are so full of religion that gospel stories give them such inspiration. I suppose they were indoctrinated in it just like me, and more than that, they had to obtain their daily bread from it!
66. Interview with Christopher Hitchens
Comment #94133 by Downunder on December 4, 2007 at 10:00 pm
re ADH 's posts 18&57: your worldview is based on Scripture. Although a product of the Jesuit high-school in Amsterdam, and with a lifetime of going to church, say 76 years, successively on 2 opposite sides of the globe, I have come to question increasingly any references to the bible. While still at school I wondered about the variety of other Holy Books and was advised to read only the version with the Rome Imprimatur. Yes, I could see good practical reasons that Rome wants to use their version, but my point now is: if God inspired those Books, why are they so different that they caused friction over the ages and did not prevent random killing of innocents? I have been given to understand that these books were written by humans in whatever language and subjected to translations into whichever language. These books have thus been subject to author's/translator's interpretations. My conclusion is that "God inspired" has thereby lost its relevance. All such thinking gradually led me to my more recent close scrutiny of the church's probably most common daily prayer: the Hail Mary. To devoutly occupy my mind in church during the routine ceremony of a Sunday Mass I set myself the task of contemplating the meaning of each sentence in a Hail Mary. My indoctrinated belief got me as far as: "Holy Mary mother of God" when it dawned on me that all Catholics, all over the world with the Pope at the top, have been declaring for generations that God has an 'earthly' mother; that the biblical omnipotent God, the Creator has an earthly beginning! Yes, my mind soon found its indoctrinated answer: Mary is the mother of Jesus, Jesus is the son of the Holy Spirit who with the Father forms the Holy Trinity, makes it all into God. As a Catholic you either believe it or you have lost your faith, which is now my fate.
May be, ADH, a similar contemplation by you about your Scriptures may make you realise that all the Holy Books are mere human attempts to provide mankind with a moral guide, dressing the God concept with human connotations to suit the author's/translator's environment. To me, if there is a God, it is unlikely a 'he' nor a 'she', nor a maker, breaker, record keeper, nor the creator because in my concept God = life, no beginning no end, no dimension as we know it, being beyond our mere human comprehension. Like God, life is an abstract but at least we can scientifically prove life's presence. We can kill=remove a life from this planet and we can prolong some lives. As yet, we cannot create life nor transfer life and I doubt if we ever will because life appears to be "on loan" to us from a different dimension beyond our access. Life enters at birth and disappears on death. Life is a fact and it follows logically to me that life must come from and go back to somewhere, beyond our dimensions. I feel now that the widespread, historical belief in a God has eventuated from an instinctive awe for natural phenomena, disasters, pain and death. Life is in us for only a very short time, a blink of the astronomical eye. Life may be 'eternal', beyond our dimensions or dimensionless for all I know. Can you, AHD, tell me without referring to a bible, what life is and could you agree that the Holy Books have dressed God with a variety of human connotations while we have no comprehension of the image of such a totality-dimension?
67. Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster
Comment #93686 by Downunder on December 3, 2007 at 11:00 pm
With due respect to all, I would not be surprised if RD's article is having-us-on. Only RD would know if his objective was to stir the pot and draw public comments, which he achieved nicely, judging from this site.
Comment #93662 by Downunder on December 3, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Thanks Goldie for your posts 77 and 83. I get the picture. Just as well my 4 children and 7 grandchildren are all adults, so now I only have to seek answers for myself. Would you believe that, although my wife stopped going to church years before I did, she is right now on her computer assembling our 2007 Xmas card, using a newly acquired artist's program. She manipulated brick walls, moved in straw, a Josef, Mary, baby-in-manger, oxen, donkey, 3 kings and a camel, made a landscape with stars in the sky! She has been working on it for days and when she proudly showed me what she was doing with that new program, I could not help but asking: why a Xmas crib? Answer: I do not believe in the forbidding God but I do believe in love and peace expressed by a crib, not by a father Xmas figure. Thus arose my question in post76.
Comment #93610 by Downunder on December 3, 2007 at 6:03 pm
To Northern Bright and to Dr. Benway.
Having abandoned my 80 years of indoctrinated catholic reasoning, I have a problem now with celebrating X-mas. Stripping the biblical, traditional X-mas crib story of all religious connotations appeals to me more than replacing it by a father X-mas figure. What stimulates an atheist into that X-massie feeling?
70. I am creating artificial life, declares US gene pioneer
Comment #76943 by Downunder on October 7, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Re lbq's post 39; very observant and one wonders why poster DNAtheist did not pick that up; may be he is not involved in DNA?
Re GSP's post 40; I agree, ethics must be safeguarded but they can be dealt with as science progresses. Science will inherently precede ethics.
IMHO, Venter did not create new life but diverted existing life into a different direction. Re the Guardian's quote at the top of this page; "DNA is credited with being the building block of life" DNA is NOT the building block but the building's assembly instruction. Please lbq correct me, and if I should withdraw that statement.
Comment #76938 by Downunder on October 7, 2007 at 10:14 pm
ReMacropus'216, your last para "Sam's argument.....left....the uneasy feeling...being bullied.....", shows that you have missed Sam's point! ahouston's post214 here above may help you and on page4 post 199, 1/2 way down, the sentence which starts with "I live in a country......". Whether you like it or not, fact is that the word 'atheist' creates a negative image.
Comment #76438 by Downunder on October 5, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Re captainunderpants189,KosmoSendia191,Jack Rawlinson193,Aragon200,Keith202; I'm grabbing you 5 as just an example of many posters here who appear to misunderstand the inherent problem with the word atheist.
Re 190, "atheist" does not require a euphemism; it requires dropping altogether unless you want to come across as negative in a discussion and then make up for it by joining the fanatic's let's fight-a-war mob.
Re 191, what is enough, what don't you want to take anymore? Don't you live in a free world, can't you reject whatever beliefs? Live and let live!
Re193, You won't win any arguments as a nay-sayer. Can't you see that it is much more positive to ignore any references to the bible or to God and bring up your own positive reasons for whatever guides you through your life? All this God and bible bashing is a waste of time. Speak up about what you want to put right in this human-spoilt world.
Skipping over the f... word, he'll grow out of it, in post 199 Richard Morgan hits the nail on the head with his sentence: I live in a country where if you say you're atheist, people wonder why you feel the need to talk about the existence of God!
Comment #75519 by Downunder on October 2, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Sam Harris's point that the label "atheist" should be avoided makes sense. In addition to his extensive reasoning, that label has collected an unpleasant image and more to the point, it is a 'negative'. We need a positive image against religious fanatics. Let us do some brainstorming to find a better name and to start the ball rolling: VITALIST?
74. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #72773 by Downunder on September 22, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Re Robert Maynard's 2390. You did not confirm if you are a psychologist/psychiatrist, but from your later posts it seems that you have such an interest.
Re your post: yes it is very naive indeed, so elementary in fact that it is a natural instinct to punish by inflicting some pain. When a human has caused substantial harm to his/her society because the brain was afflicted by a mental aberration, a human, being at a higher than animal intelligence, deserves appropriate punishment by applying an inflicted pain of a higher intelligence (removal of a digit is only an example) to create a constant reminder of his/her offence. Psychologists may note a mental aberration as the reason for the offence but that is no excuse; think of offenders who are drunk, drugged, kleptomaniacs, pyromaniacs, depressed, molesters, etc. An offence is an offence and if the offence is substantial, the punishment must be substantial. To place people in asylums or in jails is naive 'out of sight out of mind', it is stupid, cruel, does not help the offender, nor the offended. It should of course be assessed if the offending brain's free-will is deflected by some mental aberration and, if effective medical correction is available, that should be applied rather than sentimental psychological excuses.
Re your last para, you bring a deity into the picture. What does a creator have to do with it, unless you believe in a creator? If you do, could you then please say so and tell me if you have a wireless connection or some such to know about a creator's foreknowledge or reasoning? If you are just believing, it is your free will to do so, that is fine with me so long as you allow others do the same. Of course all this is only IMO.
75. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #71945 by Downunder on September 20, 2007 at 1:23 am
Re Robert Maynard's 2389. Just saw yours when I submitted mine and cannot help but add my comment because I have thought a lot about such afflictions, which have come up regularly in the news for years. I don't know if you are a psychologist but you may tell me at any rate what you think, when a Judge lets-off some culprit of whatever crime because a defending psychologist has put a (what I call) "sob" story across. Where should we draw the line, which punishment fits the crime, 1st offenders, recidivists? A good example may be smokers. My youngest son was a smoker, his youngest child, now 21, a very nice girl (all my grand children are the best!) asked him, pleaded with him while she was still in primary school, to give it up. He did, many, many times, but sneaked back until, only a couple of years ago, an incidental medical check-up convinced him almost. Then followed his wife being diagnosed with breast cancer and the whole trauma of repeated surgery and chemo (she is doing fine now); that really woke him up and he has stopped smoking, full stop. Now such observations confirmed to me at close quarters the difficulty of overcoming even self-inflicted afflictions. The cure is to exert pain.
Look at the animals. Over my long years I have had cats and the pleasure of dogs. Our children had lizards, budgies, horses. We got eggs from our chooks. We have observed that they all have a system in common: peace is kept by a pecking order. If even a dear little puppy misbehaves, topdog will make it scream when necessary. Horses give nasty kicks, I felt them. Pain presents itself as a natural and obvious cure for misbehaviour. Oh yeah, I can hear the outcries already: barbaric! Makes me yell out louder: what about those stupid bloody wars where all and sundry are killed in the name of peace by both sides, wasting unlimited amounts of money? Jails are just as stupid, may serve for brief retention, but longterm are barbaric (I wouldn't lock up my dogs like that). Jails are an inefficient use of public funds and have proven to seldom correct the offenders. Let us look at a pedophile. I envisage that his problem would be controlled by a little humane surgery and if that first bit did not bring selfcontrol, nature has provided some 10 fingers. I guess that (humane surgical) removal of the 1st digit will serve the offender as a constant reminder that there are 9 to go.
76. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #71899 by Downunder on September 19, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Veronique, as a computer illiterate dill, I had great difficulty finding my way through the RD maze to the pm site where I read your pm. (and a brief note from I don't know who dated 16th Jun!) I managed to submit my reply but had to go around in circles to get the address right. If you did not receive it please let me know on this Godly site.
77. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #71878 by Downunder on September 19, 2007 at 8:26 pm
Here is another post, which got lost when I tried to submit it early in June. It was meant to be my 1st contribution to this site but this computer-illiterate dill must have hit the wrong thingy. My eye fell on it yesterday and seeing now that there are again some comments about the RD debate, I may as well post this; just as another of IMHmO!
Anyone criticizing Alister Mc's foibles should look in a mirror. More to the point: the question is: "God, to be or not to be"? It is a futile question when 'a God' is intrinsically beyond our intelligence. Questioning a God's existence is as futile as asking my dog to do my accounts, a concept completely beyond a dog's comprehension. Religion's problem is that traditional imagination has 'painted' God as a maker and breaker. At my ripe old age I have come to a conclusion that the world is not run by any Deity but the world just IS and belongs with life=god=universe=nature=eternity=totality=time. That concept has gradually provided me with answers about the reasons for it all. Let me apply it to some examples: what is life? Life to me is an abstract "piece" of the universe, on loan to me from the universe at birth, returning to the universe at death. Natural disasters : nature moves, we may scientifically observe what happens but control is beyond us; nature existed, exists and will exist beyond mankind, which is here only for a blink of the astronomical eye. The meaning of life : instinctively "hunting and gathering" to support the body, respecting the forces of nature ranging from disasters to beauty, applying our intelligence and evolving science to fathom out how things work.
It thus seems to me that all of us should keep our proverbial feet on the ground and concentrate our efforts on making this a better world for all. We cannot control natural disasters but we can and must control man-made disasters. Any human with above-average intelligence carries the above-average responsibility to "weed out the bad apples". Arguing about whose Deity or God is the right one will not help us one iota. What will help us all is to respect the beliefs of others, foster mutual respect, live and let live, with the proviso: fanatics must be "controlled" promptly before these cause another war, sacrifice countless innocents and destroy hard-gained infrastructure.
78. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #71853 by Downunder on September 19, 2007 at 7:13 pm
I tried to submit this last night about 14 hrs ago but the site was inaccessible. Amazing to see how many posts have meantime been added.
Re epeeist's 2375, IMHO: "not guilty" at that lower rank level. If my memory serves me right, at Nuremberg lower ranks and soldiers were not tried; it would have gone on forever. Also, think of a sailor on a warship at night sinking "on Captain's command" a merchant ship with one well-aimed shot and the merchant turns out later to be a friendly ship. Would you say the sailor is guilty? And what about the 10,000's of allied bombers, which flew over Holland to Germany? Many of them were hit, be it by anti-aircraft fire or by German fighter planes. Were those bomber crews morally allowed to drop their bombs at random on Holland in order to try and limb back to England, or before bailing out to save themselves?
A jet-fighter pilot could be guilty if the mistake is caused by his error in observation, as has happened in Iraq.
I hold above all, the political decision makers guilty. It are they who organised brainwashing of the nation and 'indoctrination to kill' by the so-called "defense" forces. Modern practice is to call a spade a spade, let us therefore call all military: our "attack" forces, their duty being to attack an enemy. It is just another instance of how we are being spindoctored all the time!
79. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #71598 by Downunder on September 19, 2007 at 5:12 am
Thank you Veronique and your young friend Kobi for your extensive reply in your post 2345. Sorry to keep you suspended. I sat down several times and wrote parts of comments on your long post but was interrupted time and again to attend to other matters. Well, you gave more then I bargained for :-). I am very tempted to reply in detail but that would be hogging this site.
I posted my 2223 because you are in Australia and you struck me as a different character. Your post confirms this! My posts on this RD site are caused by my thoughts about the God "delusion". If I were not bothered by religion, I would not be on this site and if all goes swimmingly in one's life without 'whatever' why would one bother? But having been indoctrinated in the Catholic faith from the moment that I could sit quietly beside my father in the right-hand isle in church (yes, ladies on the left and must wear hats!) it is not easy to let go. When we migrated to NZ in 1952 it was really comforting to find that Sunday mass, in Latin, was exactly the same as what we had left behind in Holland and we thought what a great thing to be a Catholic. But when our 1st child got to school-age, the church began to push us around. My questions of "why", began to arise. I had been using increasingly my own judgment and free will. At home we never dared to ask why; we did as we were told. You may say: why ask "why things are so", and you are right: it makes life easier to put mental blinkers on, let it all happen around you and just look after your own family.
Unfortunately I notice what happens in 'my' world. I sometimes prefer to NOT notice things, like your cheetahs chasing young gazelles to-the-kill or the ad nauseam showing of baby seals being dealt with by humans. I ask myself why do they show it? Some incidents so annoy me that I ring or write letters to the news media, not for publication but to stir the s..t out of them. I wished every body would bother to do that because then the vote chasing politicians would get into the act.
I believe that RD is correct with his God delusion publicity. Over the years I have gradually come to that same conclusion. I had never heard of RD until 27th May when the local TV showed the RD / McG debate. I admired RD's calm and polite attitude; looked him up on the web and got sucked in from there.
Somewhere in the middle of your long post you say that I am "crying in the wind". Rest assured, I like the power of the wind to get optimum speed when sailing. What I hate is being brainwashed without being given the opportunity to ask questions.
Kobi you did well in the challenge to contribute to Veronique's post. You made me think back to where I was as a 19 year old. That would have been in 1946, my last year at high school, very late because the schools were closed for some years of the '40-'45 war. I was "underground" during those years. All able men and boys were put in camps and forced to work on the German defence system. I stayed out of sight at home, made such things as little floats (laboriously by hand) for oil wicks to provide light (there was no power). My father had many drums of oil and swapped oil plus wicks for food or whatever useful item someone else might have access to. Whenever German soldiers were seen in the street I would crawl into a hidden cubbyhole. You may understand from this that in 1946 getting back to normal was the priority and any philosophical questions did not arise but if I had been asked "why are we here?", our religious Catholic indoctrination would have produced the prompt answer: "to obey God and thereby get to heaven" and the 10 Commandments were drummed into us. It may sound terrible, but consider the simplicity; you don't have to think, you just follow the set rules. The problem is that different religions have different rules!
Thanks for your comments. Keep your eyes and ears open and be aware of spindoctors. Good luck and keep smiling.
80. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #71164 by Downunder on September 18, 2007 at 1:17 am
Thank you epeeist for 2343. I use the discarded laptop (just noticed its label "IBM ThinkPad") from one of my sons. I have only been using it since last year for my letters. I know "nothing" about computers. I looked and found notepad in here and have just tried it with this post but it shows no tool bar along the top for the "bold" and "italics", so back to Word. Word's sequence of adding "strong etc" is quite a detour but it will do me to highlight just the poster's names; quote and accents have been serving me without reader's complaints sofar.
81. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #70856 by Downunder on September 17, 2007 at 5:01 am
Sorry all; this post is about a computer-illiterate matter.
THX Veronique for your 2337. Re your 1st para, agreed; para 2, exactly the same here. Re para 3, on completion of a draft in word, I hit "select all" and "copy". Then I recall the minimised RD page "refresh" and log-in . I "preview", to make any corrections, then hit "submit" and go back to the last RD page to note my post # for my file. Like you, I also found that the page times-out without any apparent warning. It does not bother me anymore because the original is in word and I "refresh" the page before entering. I wonder how Dianelos gets his long posts entered. He must be a fast typist or he may just copy&paste like us.
BTW, I did read your post 2317; no hurry I intend to be around for a while yet. I feel fine, fit as a fiddle but every now and again something tingles and one can't help thinking; "here we go". B4N
82. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #70566 by Downunder on September 16, 2007 at 5:00 am
Re Goldy's 2326; yes it is easy for others to say "out with the old" but it leaves an empty space and you feel lost. Paul has been told and has told us, lots of points but that God-concept is like a guiding light, hard to let go. I'm not sure but he may be a teacher at some church school, which would create a conflicting situation. He would have to change his job before changing his beliefs. He'll survive so long as he keeps discussing.
About my "noughts&crosses", I switched over from Dutch to 100% English in 1952. My jobs have always involved writing lots of technical reports and I have never hesitated about my ought, should or must until the experts on this site were noting intricate differences. Just to check if I have lost the plot I put that sentence in item 5. I noted that you did not comment on it so it may be OK.
BTW, has it happened 2u2 that your post gets lost on entering?
83. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #70542 by Downunder on September 16, 2007 at 1:34 am
Re PaulE's 2324, saw this while trying to enter (and loosing) my comment about you previous one, so here goes the lot in one post if I don't foul it up again. Thanks for your note but I do still like to have DrB's oughts and isses. Re your promises problem, experience has proven that promises between 2 or more people about some serious matter would best be put in writing because people have that 'free' will to change their mind. It need not even involve dishonesty; people's circumstances may unforeseen change. If you have drawn up your will you must have wondered why all the legal jargon? Wills are renowned to split up families. One of my (deceased) relations was an attorney and he strongly advised me many years ago to trust no one, not even your own children because he had seen it over and over again "the road to hell is paved with good intentions".
Re your 2323, last para, it does not look like a good example to me. The visiting other planet lacks information and whatever goes-on is none of their business. I would back away from the weirdo before he might jump on me!
Re your blue blocked quote from DrB. IMHmbO a moral code can be agreed to by 2 persons and if they disagree the law of the jungle will prevail; bad democracy. If a 3rd person were brought in and all 3 were of identical bodily strenghts, good democracy would prevail. However if one is stronger the jungle will settle it; bad democracy again. What is good and bad, also in their moral code, is not up to any outsider nor to any God. It is up to their free will!
84. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #70527 by Downunder on September 15, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Re DrBenway's 2321 could please make clear for me
1. If I delete the word 'innocent', does the not killing of human beings remain an 'ought'?
2. Is it relevant to define 'innocent'?
3. Who decides on the innocence?
4. The difference between a) we 'do' breathe clean air.
b) 'ought to'
c) 'should'
d) 'must'
5. We must breathe clean air; we ought to, and if we do not, we should because most of us would expect our lungs to suffer.
85. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #70363 by Downunder on September 15, 2007 at 4:30 am
Thanks Corylus, I'll try it here and italics and enter it to see if I have 'mastered' it. It seems quite a fiddle for just one word but I'll do this whole sentence with the same effort and the whole world can verify! Perfect, showed instantly in the preview but found already that the / has to be in the correct position because this sentence went also bold. I thank you.
86. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #70318 by Downunder on September 14, 2007 at 11:37 pm
Re BMMcArdle's2304. I have read a little more in wikipedia about the 'cloth' of pantheism and panentheism and found that the 'weave' does not suit me. The fabricators have soiled that lot by inserting their God. I grew up with a God concept and have become aware of the delusion, so back to this site where I saw your statement "Since God is invisible......it is simpler to assume...". I almost agreed with that until I realised that it also contains an assumption. I want to avoid assumptions and beliefs unless common sense justifies their use.
As indicated in an earlier of my posts, it is an historical fact that humans have for 100's of generations instinctively been in awe of the 'forces of nature', or of 'something' beyond our dimensions. Solid evidence of that awe are archeological finds around the globe; in Egypt pyramids, Mexico aztecs, China army of stone soldiers. The 'God' label came later and is the most common in our society for that 'something'. The God delusion snowballed from assumptions and beliefs. One can try to ignore the instinctive awe for a 'god something' but it does not remove the awe. Putting blinkers on, closing one's personal mind to it, may work for a while but does not remove the presence of that 'something' from one's environment. I have attended some funeral services which were followed by releasing balloons, replacing the God pollution by balloon pollution ! Yes 'something' is felt to be out there.
Thus I have come to my reasoning about life that any living matter has 'something' added on completion of its earthly building-block assemblage, to make it alive. That 'something' needs a label so I call it LIFE. Life is an abstract but, like many other abstracts such as joy and fear, life is real, requires no assuming, no imagination. It has been suggested to me to forget it all and just carry-on living. But, life is important to me; I have lived through the 1940-'45 German occupation, survived nearby Shell Oil Co storage tanks burning down, dodged countless stray bombs, later conscripted in the Dutch army to defend her (Dutch) Majesty's colonies against insurgent native freedom fighters, was taught: be fast kill first, observed that Hitler's crafty indoctrination of young people made Germany raise its arms in "sieg heil". One would think that mankind learns from stupid wars where lives don't count and assets are destroyed. I respect life. Having followed this God delusion site I found words, words and lengthy (some very interesting) discussions with very deep thinking about morals and QM. It intrigued me greatly when the simple question popped up in the teapot's post 2300 2nd line: "Is it wrong to beat a dog", to which PaulE's 2301 replied: "Yes". Here we are up to our eyebrows in the finest details of philosophy and defining morals but a practical daily problem for all and sundry receives an unambiguous "yes" rather then a considered "it depends.....". The question begs additional info; if a dog has overstepped the mark, 'top dog' will give it a hefty shaking. This observation may indicate that our daily routines are drastically influenced by emotional propaganda be it from so-called animal lovers, one-eyed Greens, child protectors, right-to-lifers, privacy defenders, etc. Why has that happened? IMHO: because science has overtaken religious preaching. Flocks of faithful have turned their backs to the churches and the moral vacuum is readily filled by the controversy and emotion driven newsmedia. Smacking your own child here can land you in jail and the newsmedia love it. I'm not condoning belting up children, nor animals! The punishment should fit the crime. We are being led astray; the 'God pressure' is being replaced by over-emphasising of emotions: trauma-counseling, safety helmets, safety fences around private swimming pools, a long list of stresses, etc. But.......wars, the killing of innocents just goes on, from generation to generation, country to country, the newsmedia making sure that they obtain on-site info at whatever cost. If we lived in peace, funds would be available to assist developing countries. The war machinery industries would be better occupied by producing implements for underdeveloped countries and for space research.
Back to LIFE and this god delusion and theisms where I can already feel BMMcArdle's one-liners coming and the flicker of DrBenway's razor sharp scalpel separating the noughts and isses while Dianelos and PaulEmecz are keeping their God-noose around their neck and I try to present 'life' as a common denominator to stop wars. Computers came after my basic education. Finding my way to wikipedia was an experience. My brief visits to the theism site gave me an inkling of how Dianelos can produce so much info. I glimpsed at Hartshorne (metaphysics, prof 'r of philosophy, died 2000) who used Krause's (1828) panentheism and pantheism but separated God somewhat from the world, like a mother and fetus, he favoured pantheism, believed in a God capable of change, etc. That was enough for me to discard theisms of any kind. Couldn't help after sleeping on it, to stick a label: 'panenvitaeism' on my LIFE concept. Blame Dianelos!:-).
That god/theism annotation must be avoided because no one can know what God is like or what God wants or does or has done. But........the question remains what is mankind-at-large in awe about? Don't tell me to ignore it because just carrying-on killing each other is stupid. It does not harm me, I've been there done that, am ready to depart to that awesome yonder. My wife and I have produced 4 children who produced 7 grandchildren; all are now good adult human beings and we don't want to have our efforts wasted. It is in the interest of everyone to change that deluding God / superior-being concept and use facts.
BTW, please tell me how do you get bold and italic in your posts? I draft my posts in Microsoft Word, but on transfer to RD's it auto-converts all to RD's plain font. Uppercase remains OK.
Aided by post 2315, I have retrofitted bold to the names in the above.
Just saw epeeist is back, nice, en garde, full of beans.
87. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #69845 by Downunder on September 13, 2007 at 1:52 am
Re Goldy's2278, having used my meaty mind blob, made my contribution to this world, paid my taxes and reaching my use-by-date, I must not put my head in the sand. I have experienced a variety of human societies in different parts of the world and know that I must stay alert because my wife and I live from our savings, some of which I invested and self-trade in the sharemarket. From perusal over the years, of dozens of Annual Reports of large public co's I dare say that the sharemarket stinks. I just deleted a dozen lines with evidence because this is not the place for it. Suffice to say that the voting power in large public co's is held by other cross-shareholding large public co's; all quite legal. I know what you mean with your reference to a car, but I happen to know how most mechanical things work, also from running our automated renewable-product-farming business for 18 years, after I retired from C. Eng'g in 1984.
88. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #69827 by Downunder on September 13, 2007 at 12:35 am
Having now read Dianelos' 2266 more slowly I should again emphasise for my panentheist inclinations expressed in 2271 that I do object to the label of God. God is essentially beyond our intelligence. We cannot comprehend God and it is probably the reason that a variety of religions have developed over the ages, 'dressing' God in a variety of images. While I can't follow much of Dianelos' complicated reasoning, it is contradictory to give on the one hand the impression of meticulously detailed research, while on the other hand using the simplistic approach of just assuming that God has human traits and that a God person is responsible for it all. My cure for such mental conflict is to change the label God. While Dianelos has told us in one of his posts that he also considers the word God to be just a name, a label for an abstract concept, he ignores that the name has been accumulating all sorts of human connotations, has created a delusion. While I have come to a conclusion that the God concept has developed into nonsense, I nevertheless believe that the universe exerts influence not only on the massive objects floating in the universe but also on the smallest particles and on whatever is in the interspaces which are seemingly 'empty' to us. I label that 'influence' or that 'something': LIFE and have expressed my thoughts in earlier posts that all living matter receives life 'on-loan' from LIFE, to be returned on death.
It is intriguing that I now found my line of thinking presented in the last para of D's 2266: the concept of panentheism. (Dianelos has a knack to make things look complicated!) Not having a clue what it was, I have now looked it up on the web. I wanted to see if such a possible new religious coat under the label of panentheism could fit me. I found to my pleasant surprise quite some evidence that the 'cloth' is excellent, has apparently been well developed over the ages, the label was attached in 1828, proven suitable to 'dress' the deeper thinkers of practically all religions: Christianities, Eastern&Oriental Orthodox, Judaism, Hinduism. You can see it for yourself by entering "panentheism" in a "free dictionary" on the web. However, please note, the cloth looks fine but for my suit I do not want God on the label. If I may use my free will/choice, I'll use the 'LIFE or the universe' label. If Dianelos peruses this post, would he tell me in simple terms to possibly agree about the soiled God label needing an overhaul? Intrinsically labels with connotations are NA to something that simply IS, 'in esse' (but not as the SJ candle on the web site because time is NA to the universe). Changing by all and sundry of the long ingrained God label into a name "LIFE" or "the universe" will be practically impossible and may not be necessary if the preachers gradually wean their congregations off the idea that God is the maker and breaker. Sowing the seed of an idea will have it germinate here and there. It self-spreads further.
In earlier posts I have hinted that we look for common threads rather than for differences in our various '---isms', with the objective of working together rather than fighting each other. This panentheism may provide the common thread to try 'knitting' with. (Lost threads will entertain the cat &kitten posters).
Alovrin's 2275, I enjoyed your tasty morsel in this discussion sandwich.
phil rimmer's 2276; well put but who respects Greer's thoughts? I don't.
89. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #69691 by Downunder on September 12, 2007 at 8:08 am
Re Goldy's 2234; I'm not 'worried' about "why are we here", but having "evolved" so much further than our forefathers since the year dot and having come to the conclusion that "God is a delusion", I seek the answer to that elementary question of: why?
It is an historical fact that mankind has always felt an instinctive need to pay respect to "nature" e.g. by human sacrifices to volcanoes, gifts to the sun and rain gods, wife on husband's funeral pyre, armies of stone soldiers buried with the Emperor, etc. We may think to have learned by now so much from science that we may arrogantly put our heads in the sand. Several posters here simply deny whatever they deem fit, without presenting a positive. I have more admiration for those who show their hand with developed thinking. We don't all have to walk the same paths but it is helpful to discuss with the objective of uniting against the nasty forces of nature so that we can all reap more enjoyment in this peculiar world of ours. Science is showing us more and more "how" things are working but not "why" things are there in the first place. Evolution can be used as a stopgap similar to Gods. I may wonder: how birds fly? Evolution may tell me that four legged animals grew wings in place of their front legs. I could then ask: why would a land animal want to grow wings? An answer could be: because over many years evolution happened to produce a variety of permutations and the winged variety became a survivor. Such answer really leaves the question of "why" still unanswered. Science assumes that things do not 'just' happen. We must try and find the reasons why, not just how, and we must be honest if the answer is: we do not know. We must not delude ourselves by inventing a complicated explanation.
I may be out of my depth with some of this site's posters but from my achievements in this world I dare say that I'm not stupid. I have come to a conclusion for myself that the God-label conveys a misguided concept of something, which does exist in our universe but is beyond our intelligence. I have not invented infinity, life, consciousness, joy, fear, pain and all such abstracts, which exist with their own specific reality.
BMMcArdle's 2243 notes: "You cannot define or imagine things into existence", to which I could add: "unless you are a magician, when you use people's imagination" and I should add specifically that magicians do not ignore the 'out of ' existence. It is convenient to close one's mind to whatever one deems unimportant. I can only wonder if BMMc has ever found himself driven into such a tight life-threatening corner that he surprised himself by crying out unwittingly "God help me"? DrBenway has most of the answers, including that each life has been implanted from the previous generation and that each life disappears on death. It seems plausible but is not very scientific. I'll throw in another thought.
Why is it so that J.S.Bach worked hard to learn to play music, developing his mind to compose music, supervising a school and producing an enormous amount of incredible music, each week new works for the Sunday church service, instructing the choir to learn and practice afresh each week. Then it all came to an end at his death. His music can still be heard, but where is his gift, his ability? It has disappeared from our consciousness but is it logical to simply assume that something so extreme has left the totality of the universe.
The truth is: we do not know what happens to the life of any living thing when it separates from the earthly remains on death. Thus we must not make assumptions nor jump to conclusions, neither way.
On visiting this site at 1AM local time to quickly enter my drafted post I fell into the para about panentheism in Dianelos' 2266. Now I know that I am on the verge of being a panentheist. Sounds much better than an atheist. But please NOTE that I will replace all the God labels and use the universe or LIFE as best suits the text.
Re Lauregon's 2269 last para, no need to feel excluded, you have a free will with eyes and ears, and hopefully good health allowing you to think what you deem best. Do keep us informed so that we may learn a better way. I don't know how Dianelos does come up with all such info. He must be a wizard.
90. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #69345 by Downunder on September 11, 2007 at 12:36 am
Re Goldy's 2224; what I have been 'told' to achieve, made me migrate as far away as I could (on this globe) from the 'told you so' in 1952. Historically 'witchdoctors gods' scared the hell out of their tribes. Now, the younger generations have been and are being indoctrinated about the environment and global warming. Don't get me wrong, I support minimizing pollution but listening incidentally to a school-radio program while having my morning cup of coffee I heard that nuke power generation is listed as clean electricity and desalination plants are bad because too expensive. The Green delusion is brainwashing young minds.
Re Monkey2's 2226; sorry about my limited abilities. Evolution has advanced science. We can place man on the moon. We can very efficiently kill millions and flatten cities with one nuke bomb, but has evolution let us live in peace and enjoy life? It is bad enough to be plagued by the natural afflictions over which we have no control.
Re Dianelos' 2231; so called democratic principles allow public brainwashing by glibtalkers, these then get elected to be our political decision makers. It is a strange world we live in.
91. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #69315 by Downunder on September 10, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Re Veronique's 2208; we all have our lives. The problem is what to do with it. I have gazed in awe, first as a little child (one of 5) scared of thunder&lightning; now 80 years later I still count the sec's between the lightning and the thunder to see if the storm is coming closer or going away. When lightning hits nearby trees with unexpected explosive sound, it makes you jump. One's life can end any time. It has kept me wondering why nature is both beautiful and cruel; with earthquakes, floods, droughts, diseases, pain & joy, etc. Worst of all is the stupid destruction of lives and assets by man-made wars. Why are humans so hell-bent on fighting? Why excessive glorification of winners, be it in sport, socially or in business? Why have we set no limit to human greed? Is winning important or is being a good looser more important or should the cunning of the game be the criterion?
Why are we here, why does live-matter exist on earth and why with a life-span insignificant in the totality of the universe? Let God be a "delusion" but undeniably the concept has been filling an obvious instinctive human need for 1000's of years. Science has been moving the religious goalposts gradually. Evolution theory has thrown some light on how we came to be here, but the fundamental questions still remain: what is the ultimate purpose of it all? What is life, where does life (consciousness, the mind) come from and go back to? Is there a purpose for our hard earned living; we die whether or not we have reached some stage of satisfaction. How do YOU answer those questions for the younger generation?
Please do enlighten me.
92. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #68804 by Downunder on September 8, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Goldy's 2159: well said, simply and clearly.
93. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #68076 by Downunder on September 6, 2007 at 3:52 am
Re Dianelos' 2128; my purpose of using the word LIFE in uppercase is solely to avoid using the label God because that word brings to mind some fuzzy picture of a ghostly being, which many of us have been indoctrinated to believe-in, with supernatural powers: creating, making, breaking, controlling, directing, rewarding, punishing, etc. I have found it increasingly nonsensical.
Having a free will I am constrained in my actions by an unwritten moral code and by the local legal system but I am at liberty to think what I like. It has always struck me as stupid to blame God for disasters and diseases, as well to thank him for all the goodies. Whatever God is, he is not father Xmas. More to the point: no one has a clue what God is like. The inherent dimension of the very notion is as yet beyond science's horizon.
I have no objection to you using your extremely scientific approach in a peaceful manner and as a personal effort to maintain a God to support you and to shield behind. It adds to the variety. Observing the births of our farm animals, made me wonder where life comes from. Similarly, from watching animals die, some of them by a vet's lethal (but very humane) injection, I gradually found my solution for the "God problem": substitute the label God by another label. We have some astro-telescopes, which readily presented the label "universe" to replace "God", without any offence to whoever. But then the thought occurred about life. Where does life come from and disappear to? We live in the universe; QM and astro-physics report macro-, mini- and blackhole-sized dimensions. It seemed reasonable to use the fact that life is simply part of the universe. Documentaries have led me to believe that particulate matter penetrates everything, including our earth. Somewhere scientists are trying to count such particles by catching them in a pool of liquid deep inside a mountain. Whatever they may come up with, I find it easy to use the label LIFE for the universe's space in which all matter and non-matter exists, moves or vibrates or switches polarity or whatever we guess, measure or do not know.
My answer to your question about consciousness in LIFE is hopefully clear from the above. If I have to differentiate between life and LIFE, the former, life will have consciousness present unless a bully, an accident or an anesthetist has knocked one out, hopefully only temporarily. LIFE is the total of what makes whatever alive or leaves it dead. I must leave it to your meticulous reasoning to decide for yourself if you see any need to differentiate between life, consciousness and mind, in your very intricate thought processes.
I'm reading the posts and learning.
94. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #67579 by Downunder on September 3, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Dr Benways' 2084. I know what you mean but can't resist to note that IMHO, objectively, 3 legs on the ground provide perfect stability. In our imperfect world, 4 legged tables are likely to have one leg shorter than the gradient set by the other 3. Subsequently, wobbly 4 legged tables are less perfect and could spill your amber liquid. Will you now allow me to mix-up my oughts and is-ses?
95. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #67092 by Downunder on September 1, 2007 at 9:27 pm
BMMcArdle's 2049. You put that well, but is God the problem or is it the religious human indoctrination of "knowing" God's actions and directives, which is civilisation's development of mankind's instinctive deep respect for the "forces of nature"?
Dr Benway's 2050 "With God or without God, w're in the same boat". So we are, but we may use one make of GPS and others may place their trust in another brand; only a fool would tackle the oceans without any guidance. The problem in-common is: we are thrown into it and have to battle the waves. The question is why do we have a boat but no in-built guidance? What is life and, depending on science's answer, the next question is likely to be: what is the objective of life?
96. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #66319 by Downunder on August 29, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Re Lauregon's 2028 "conditioned belief in God"; yes I too find that illogical of the "God believers" on this site. In the 2nd para of post 1747, I asked Dianelos to go through his posts 1736 or1739 and replace for himself the name "God" by "the universe" or something dimensionless, so that he could recognise for himself his peculiar logic. He didn't reply to that simple suggestion, probably because he wants (needs) complicated questions so that he can produce complicated answers, which he does extremely well until his reasoning fails him, then he produces his God. It seems contradictory to be so well read, show such a skilful mind and memory in his posts while at the same time applying a "God" with human traits, even to the extent of allocating both the "he/she" so as not to offend God. Strange that the believers do not wake up to the fact that God has not introduced "himself". For my own struggles with the peculiarities in our world, I have modified my ingrained religious beliefs by replacing the name "God" by "life". You can try it for yourself, e.g. whenever George Bush or some such VIP spouts forth his God excuses for standing on people's toes: it quickly eliminates any religious dribble.
I do believe that something does exist beyond our dimensions and history confirms that mankind has always been in awe of nature. To me abstracts such as: fear, beauty, pleasure but most of all life are evidence of some other dimension. Life in all living things is not just abstract but factual evidence (objective or subjective?, see post 2027), which comes at birth into whatever from wherever, and departs at death to wherever. Others on this site have rejected this by saying that life "starts by chemistry", be it at the year dot or at fertilisation, and life "disappears" at death. To me that is a simple cop-out. Science must prove what life is; similar to requiring proof of God. I am one ahead because no evidence exists of God while there is plenty of evidence of life. We have as yet not grasped the importance of life and continue killing when brainwashed by the VIP's. The newsmedia have a lot to answer for, and some scientists should stop shooting from the hip, e.g. in a TV presentation last night a local medical professor in a lecture room full of students, advocated circumcision as a necessary hygienic public measure (he admitted later to some bias, he had been circumcised). A young (pimply) mother with a (running nose) baby boy to be circumcised was produced and the operation shown in detail on TV. It then turned out that the baby had an older brother who had suffered an infection (which did not surprise me), which had been cleaned-up painfully by circumcision at age 9. The mother had therefore decided to apply the "preventive" action to her baby. The TV briefly produced a pediatrician to confront the professor but that weak attempt at a balanced presentation was completely overpowered by then presenting a young pregnant couple of which the circumcised male (a local well known TV presenter) was offering his opinion based on "like-father like-son and looking like one-of-the-mob in the footy-dressing-room". The program made me cringe, just like religious fanatics.
97. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #65364 by Downunder on August 23, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Welcome back Dianelos. We (quietly) missed you but as you saw PaulE kept the minds going nicely.
Re your 1946&1947 "....objective.....reality..."; if I walk into a powerpole which leaves a bruise on my forehead, is that adequate evidence that the powerpole is real? Not having studied ethics, nor philosophy, what can I use as common-garden reality? I am gaining the impression from this site that ethics and philosophy are used as "mind-bending" religions! You display wide knowledge with precise and detailed reasoning except when things go beyond your horizon, you then put your head in the clouds and produce God as an explanation. In post 1948 you say that the name of "...the deepest structure of reality is entirely irrelevant....", I agree but why then have you chosen for your own philosophizing to use the "God" label with its traditional ingrained connotations of mere human traits such as creating, making, breaking, directing, etc.? In your concept of God, does he have a beginning? And does a "he" or "she" apply to God?
98. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #64592 by Downunder on August 20, 2007 at 11:18 pm
Re PaulE's 1903 "Downs Syndrome".
At one stage in my life I got professionally involved to clean-up the watersupply of a "retarded boys" home in the country near Melbourne. Their water comes from a local river, is pumped into an open concrete pond on top of a hill. Boys and staff suffered regular "stomach upsets" from the bacteriologically unsatisfactory supply. The problem was fixed by installing a swimming pool filter and chlorinator, cleaning and roofing the reservoir.
From that episode I will never forget that I shook the hands and looked into the eyes of many boys and I met several of the parents. The whole experience confirmed to me that while "nature" inflicts handicaps on children and parents, placing such boys (which grow into men) into institutions because their family surroundings cannot cope, is NOT the answer. It hurts the parents and the siblings, and it only supports the afflicted individuals insofar as to keep them alive and entertained (they "helped" running a dairy farm).
From such experiences I am convinced that abortion is the solution to prevent such problems where possible. To any readers who cry "murder and disrespect for life", may I suggest that you direct your energy to support the thousands who are born healthy but whose lives are readily sacrificed in man-made wars or by poverty and disease. I am convinced (until proven wrong) that any new individual does not start its own life until birth. Prior to birth a healthy fetus is alive as part of its mother. The fetus may or may not receive its own life at birth. The decision to abort should be the mother's. She may wish to receive advice and that should also be her moral decision. It only becomes a public decision if public, taxpayers funds are involved; laws are required to cover such financial situations. Our local State Parliament is currently again discussing abortion regulations; the "Right-to-Life" brigade is out in force to scream their fanatic objections and brainwash the public. They are fanatics; they believe to act on behalf of God. They are so fanatic that even the local Catholic Hierarchy has stopped supporting them, while making its own anti-abortion noises, seeking to influence any religious politicians.
Meanwhile this site's ##"s have come adrift so I changed my above quoted #, if it is wrong, my excuses.
I now saw your 1911 where you "......believe that the universe was made by God, because it seems a good explanation.......".
It seems much more logical to me to believe that the universe was not made at all but that the universe IS, WAS and EVER WILL BE. The universe itself may be God for all we know. Whatever the universe is, it certainly does not create or direct like we stupid humans do! We think that we know a lot but as yet, after 1,000's of generations, we have still not managed to even live in peace on our little planet earth. Science has explained many things, but if our universe has no boundary, micro and/or macro, we may never know it all. My morality comes from my mind. My free will was instilled at my moment of birth. The environment in which nature has placed me has molded my conscience. If a God is involved it is his responsibility. I did not ask to be born!
99. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #63576 by Downunder on August 15, 2007 at 12:14 am
PualEmecz's 1823. I appreciate that that you are still stuck with that traditional God concept, which will take some generations to fade out. But surely someone with an intelligence like yours (and our site's friend Dianelos, who is having a well earned breather) can speed things up for yourself by realising that because a "God being" is beyond our dimensions, it is futile to even think about trying to reason in such dimension. Is there not enough science to pursue in our own universe; the dimensions of which we are still grappling with, enough problems to solve in our immediate environment to stop fussing about God?
I saw a TV documentary last night featuring a USA preacher Pastor Hagee who has got himself a nice little earner, a mega church in Texas. He is a fervent Bible quoter, a fanatic supporter of Israel's actions. Had his whole congregation worked up to fever pitch in support. He strikes me as "satan incarnate". May God help America. If a Muslim preacher behaved like that, the FBI would have closed the joint. Pastor Hagee is a trouble maker. Why don't the news media crucify such people while exposing them?
100. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath
Comment #61555 by Downunder on August 5, 2007 at 5:55 pm
DrBenway's 1753. That was a good try, but I'm not throwing away my LIFE as yet. It still suits me fine to assume that all lives come from the factual universe at birth, returning to there at death leaving behind a heap of dust from which its earthly quarters were built. The individuality reunites with LIFE, the universe, an other dimension where time & space are NA.
I'll give you another arrow to throw me off balance. The chicken and the egg. I have been led to believe that a fertile egg can be kept in the fridge for weeks if not months. When such egg is then placed in an incubator at a temperature regime, gently moved to & fro at intervals, the fertilised bit starts to multiply into the requisite parts and after a certain number of days the chick inside the shell will receive life from "God only knows where", I'll say from the universe because I can at least see some of it so I know it exists. When that chick has received life, it wants out. The submarine has an airbubble built-in to provide for the escape occasion and the chick starts hammering away until hey presto: another happy little titmouse trying out its wobbly legs.
On entering this I just read your 1759. Why are we hell-bent to think that the universe has a designer, which is a human trait? As I said hereabove, time & space do not apply to my universe, it just IS. The earth is a different matter , it may last till whenever or an asteroid may bowl us to infinity tomorrow.
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