God's Will

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Considering the bombing was a criminal act disguised under the veil of war, and had absolutely nothing to do with religion but scientist conducting experiments specifically for the purpose of creating weapons, it would be safe to assume that those with any ability to maintain an objective perspective would say Science. Which reminds me, any person making the claim that a person with the ability to maintain an objective perspective would say religion, without offering any insight as to why they would say religion, is guilty of not being able to maintain an objective perspective and most likely holds a bias towards religion.

I can say that and maintain an objective perspective simply because people are seemingly confusing the concepts of killing with the aide of science and killing people because of science.

That potential for confusion does not, and cannot exist with religion. People are killed not with religion, but because of religion.

In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if those people could maintain an objective perspective they could see that in course of human history, many more people have been killed because of religion than because of science; regardless of their individual experiences.

Discussing Hiroshima and Nagasaki does add not validity to the arguement that science is more dangerous than religion because while it is clear when someone kills because of religion, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not bombed entirely because of science.

 

[ThaG]

Perhaps I should have stated my point more clearly. It can be equally as beneficial as meditation (collective insight). The only difference being religious people believe they are connecting with a "higher power" whereas with just cognitive meditation you are consciously aware that you are connecting with a different area of your mind (perhaps your subconscious actually = the "high power" for religious people).

They are very similar and neurologically (I'll give you a basic run down) your brain waves go from BETA (13-30 cycles per second) to APLHA (7-13 cycles per second) which is the perfect level for collective insight, meditation and psychological hypnosis. At this level of brain activity you're very relaxed, collective, and your brain can focus more intuitively on specific areas without distraction.

In a very deep meditation (or prayer) you can even dip down into THETA waves (4-7 cycles per second) while staying conscious which can potentially cause some strange experiences, this is the level at which if you were sleeping dreams start to occur, sleep paralysis also occurs at this level. I don't think it's extremely common but consciousness at this level of brain activity would account for many "religious" experiences.

Anyways... You don't have to pray to some "higher power" for it to be beneficial, rather I believe this is why so many people pray religiously, because the experiences they have had made them feel as if they were actually interacting with a higher power, and yes the exercise in itself (much like meditation) is mentally beneficial. And having the thought that one is interacting with a "higher being" probably helps people.

I should also note that the version of prayer that modern day western society practices is probably not nearly as beneficial. It's too quick and brief. But if you look at most religious accounts of humans supposedly having interaction with a "God", many times it's preceded by long, intense praying, which would mean they probably dipped into THETA waves in the process and reached a hallucinatory state of consciousness.

That's the point I was making and should have made clear from the start. Everyone came at me like I was some universal new-age religious "the secret" fanatic, but no... theres no "hocus pocus" type bullshit in what I was trying to say.

Maybe it's because I'm making connections between prayer and meditation? BTW meditation is a purely psychological cognitive mind exercise... meditation isn't necessarily a spiritual practice (unless you make it so).

Is prayer beneficial? Yes.
Are people actually interacting with a "Higher Being"? No, but imagining that they are in fact interacting with a "higher being" helps people and has done so for thousands of years.

I'm basically atheist/agnostic but what I don't understand about many other atheists is that they are so anti-religion to the point where they label any religious activity as "insane" and ridiculous. There's a reason it's insane and seems ridiculous, because it's an old and outdated view of the world, but it still has it's benefits. You aren't going to win people over by shrugging off and ridiculing religion, instead you should study it and then explain to them why religion has worked the way it has in the past.

Because there can't be more than one truth, everything different from the truth is a lie or an illusion, and lies and illusions are bad things

I have explained why not only religion, but any form of irrationality are inherently dangerous, and the danger is so big that few people are able to grasp it

 

[HERESY]

Who told you that I don't know anything about deism?




Oh really? So to what branch do you belong?




This definition is also found at deism.com, which seems to be an authoritative source. Does this definition not cover all the branches to which you refer above? If it does, then you, as a deist, must not believe in the divine status of one Jesus Christ nor in any of his so-called miracles.




See above.




In a previous post, you wrote:

"(...)any revelation or supernatural event that we may encounter/experience is something that was already planned to happen and doesn't actually mean God is doing it right then and there." (Sept. 23, 2008 - 11:04am)

By "already planned to happen" do you mean to say that any supposedly supernatural event is really just a natural consequence coming from God at His initial creation? What throws me off here is that you refer to the existence of revelation, which immediately screams non-deist. The same goes for "supernatural." If you are saying that any genuinely supernatural (i.e. outside this natural universe) event occurs in the universe, then you're not a deist.
Saying that God planned for all that would occur in the universe before the universe was created does not constitute deism. For if it did, then all theists (i.e. those who believe in a supreme being of omnimax capacity) would be deists, and thus the term "deism" would lose distinctive meaning.




I have other reasons to speak against prayer for supplication, request or begging. But so far as this deistic reasoning above goes, the easiest point to attack would be in their use of the word "perfectly." The implication is that a perfectly created universe does not change and that a prayer requesting for some material benefit would necessarily constitute a change from the original set up. However, it may not constitute a change. The prayer may be part of the set up, one can always argue. This might lead into a free will debate, which I won't get into right now.
In any case, maybe you happen to agree with this deistic outlook on prayer, but if you believe in the existence of divine revelation and supernatural events, then you can't be a deist. This deistic outlook on prayer does not alone make a deist.




What herein constitutes "through the nature of the universe" or not might be something to explore. For example, human beings are a species that exist in the nature of the universe. Therefore, one might argue that a human's contact of God through petitions for relief is yet another method of going through the nature of the universe.




Once again, agreeing with the deist's outlook on prayer is not sufficient to make one a deist.

If you truly are a deist, that is quite different from how I understood you to be before. I've always understood you to be a believer in divine revelation, especially pertaining to Biblical texts.

tl;dr

will address at a later date.

 

[ThaG]

Originally Posted by Ethereal
Ask the people in Hiroshima if religion ir more dangerous than science.

Once again, it is very easy to see things on the surface and not so easy to see what lies below it.

Religion is a lot more to blame for Hiroshima than science, ultimately humanity has benefited from this research program and could have benefited even more if it wasn't, again, for religion and the inadequate mode of thinking it imposes on whole societies

You just need to be able to track the causality chain to its very root and your eyes will open for a lot of things. But this requires being able to think analytically and objectively, and these are qualities that few people have. Guess why? That's right, because religion is that "Virus of the mind" that poisions everything and everybody and prevents them from being able to think analytically and objectively.

 

[ThaG]

Considering the bombing was a criminal act disguised under the veil of war, and had absolutely nothing to do with religion but scientist conducting experiments specifically for the purpose of creating weapons, it would be safe to assume that those with any ability to maintain an objective perspective would say Science. Which reminds me, any person making the claim that a person with the ability to maintain an objective perspective would say religion, without offering any insight as to why they would say religion, is guilty of not being able to maintain an objective perspective and most likely holds a bias towards religion.

LMAO

So scientists needed to kill 200,000 to understand the structure of the atom or to verify how destructive a weapon the A-bomb is?

I always thought it was the other way around, scientists understood the structure of the atom, then the destructiveness of such weapon was appreciated by the government/military and the bomb was dropped for purely political reasons.

But if you insists on your version, you're free to keep it, it just beatifully demonstrates for yet another time that "a religious thinker" is a oxymoron

 

[ThaG]

ThaG knows of nothing concerning consciousness.

Come and take a neurobiology class with me, then you can comment on my understanding of consciousness

 

[ThaG]

you still havent answered my question ThaG, so for the third time:

if it was scientifically valid for you to blow yourself up killing others in the process for a greater cause, would you?



lemme guess, you would because your belief is different than everybody else and isnt corrupt like everybody elses?
no different than a muslim, christian, you name it.

I don't understand what exactly the question is

If you mean whether it is justified to kill a lot of people in order for everybody else to survive / live better, the answer is positive. We should always be aiming at maximizing human happiness in the long term. This can expressed as a mathematical function and if maximizing it involves reducing the number of people, then so be it

 

[HERESY]

I can say that and maintain an objective perspective simply because people are seemingly confusing the concepts of killing with the aide of science and killing people because of science.

Who are these people who would seemingly confuse the concept of killing with the aide of science and killing people because of science? If a scientist chops off a womans limbs, and sews them on backward without any anesthesia all in the name of science where does the confusion come in?

That potential for confusion does not, and cannot exist with religion. People are killed not with religion, but because of religion.

In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if those people could maintain an objective perspective they could see that in course of human history, many more people have been killed because of religion than because of science; regardless of their individual experiences.

Eth wasn't referring to what has happened over the course of human history. In fact, Eth was quite specific in his statement. He was referring to Hiroshima, the people who lived there and whether religion or science caused more negative impact in their lives. You attempting to throw a curveball in here now in hopes of removing individual experience makes no sense because his statement was concerning individual experience. He was not concerned with what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago, and the people of Hiroshima would not be concerned with such.

Now, do you have any statistics or data to support your claim that more people have been killed due to religion as oppossed to science? And by science I mean WMD's (which includes, firearms bio and chem weapons), pollution as a result of mans technological advancements (high mercury levels in the water, oil spills, ozone layer depletion, etc ), experimentations on the population, botched operations and drugs (prescription meds, etc.)

I'm telling you right now, I don't have any such numbers and actually believe no such tally exists but if you have some data post it up. If not what are you basing your numbers on? Inductive or deductive logic?

Discussing Hiroshima and Nagasaki does add not validity to the arguement that science is more dangerous than religion because while it is clear when someone kills because of religion, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not bombed entirely because of science.

We are not concerned with this "someone" that has been killed due to religion. He was specific in his words, and any person with reasonable cognitive skills can, and most likely do, comprehend what he is saying. What you're failing to realize is the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not bombed because of religion. If they were not bombed entirely because of science it still doesn't matter.

Would they, or would they not, agree that science and not religion contributed to the bombings? Again, we are talking about their personal experience and not anything else, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[ThaG]

I can say that and maintain an objective perspective simply because people are seemingly confusing the concepts of killing with the aide of science and killing people because of science.

That potential for confusion does not, and cannot exist with religion. People are killed not with religion, but because of religion.

In the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if those people could maintain an objective perspective they could see that in course of human history, many more people have been killed because of religion than because of science; regardless of their individual experiences.

Discussing Hiroshima and Nagasaki does add not validity to the arguement that science is more dangerous than religion because while it is clear when someone kills because of religion, the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not bombed entirely because of science.

Actually almost nobody has ever killed in the name of science. There might have been a few Nazi scientists, but it is impossible to know who was a real scientist and who was just a sadist that found an opportunity to exercise some torture on people unable to escape. I can justify the former, but only if it is worth the effort, i.e. if you're conducting an experiment on how long a human can survive in the freezer, this is not at all justified, because it is hardly a useful information.

But if you're trying to create the best anatomy textbooks ever by doing vivisection on people, then it's different.

BTW, I don't know if many people are aware of this, but early anatomy studies were actually sanctioned by the church and the church even provided subjects for dissection, which were done in special anatomical theaters. Needless to say, these subjects were not good Christians according to the church

 

[HERESY]

LMAO

So scientists needed to kill $200,000 to understand the structure of the atom or to verify how destructive a weapon the A-bomb is?

I always thought it was the other way around, scientists understood the structure of the atom, then the destructiveness of such weapon was appreciated by the government/military and the bomb was dropped for purely political reasons.

But if you insists on your version, you're free to keep it, it just beatifully demonstrates for yet another time that "a religious thinker" is a oxymoron

Read my post again.

Baiting won't work.

 

[rekomstop]

Are you trying to get banned from this forum? This forum is for debating. Stop trying to get in the middle of everything.

really?
thank you

 

[rekomstop]

sorry, don't mean to de-rail, but when was "this forum is only for debating" added to these rules and guidelines?

1). No Spamming.

Spamming is defined as the following: Any post/thread started solely for the purpose of advertising a website* OR a user that posts simply to increase their post count**.

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** The siccness has new rules and some forums cannot be viewed unless a user has 300 or more posts. If any user is found posting multiple, meaningless replies that have little or nothing to do with the topic, you may be banned. Personally I don’t care if you’re trying to raise your post count or not, but ADD SOME MEAT TO YOUR POSTS and stay on topic.

2). No insulting or attacking members without contributing to the topic or explaining why you’re insulting a member. In other words- I don’t care if you insult other members as long as you stay within topic or can back your shit up with some sort of logic. You cannot reply with “you’re gay” or “you suck”, etc. Again, add some meat to your posts.

-Members who continue to violate rule 2 will receive at least 1 warning. If the user continues to ignore this rule and my warnings they may be banned.

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UPDATE 4.19.07:
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-If you have problems with any of these rules, need further clarification regarding a rule or would like other rules to be considered, please contact me.

?
Or is this God's will to have a debate only forum on siccness?

 

[HERESY]

Who told you that I don't know anything about deism?

You obviously don't since you used one dictionary defintion, read my reply and replied with, "I don't think what you've described qualifies as deism." simply because it didn't fit into the scope of the definition you provided.

Oh really? So to what branch do you belong?

The branch that you obviously don't know about because you know nothing about the subject. However, if you honestly want to learn about the subject, that can be arranged and the information you desire may just land in your lap.

This definition is also found at deism.com, which seems to be an authoritative source. Does this definition not cover all the branches to which you refer above? If it does, then you, as a deist, must not believe in the divine status of one Jesus Christ nor in any of his so-called miracles

1. Authoritive source according to all deist or yourself? Absolutely not.

2. No, the definition you provided does not cover all the branches.

3. There are such things as Christian Deists. Amongst Christian Deists, there are several branches that have differing views. Some believe Jesus was God, some believe he was not, some claim he did not perform miracles, others claim he did perform miracles because as God, he has an interest or stake in what goes on and that his scope of influence does not mean he is in control of everything that goes on.

If you knew anything about the branches of deism, that would have been one of the first things covered and you wouldn't even be asking me these questions and attempting to draw some type of conclusion that I'm contradictory in my beliefs.

By "already planned to happen" do you mean to say that any supposedly supernatural event is really just a natural consequence coming from God at His initial creation? What throws me off here is that you refer to the existence of revelation, which immediately screams non-deist.

First of all, I'll keep saying this for as long as I need to, but you don't know anything about the subject. It seems that the first time you heard about it was when I typed it. It seems you then decided to google it, do four hours of reading, and formulate an opinion.

Again, there are many branches of deism, and you claiming something screams non-deism is simply due to your ignorance concerning the subject. I used the word revelation because it was in the definition that YOU provided.

The same goes for "supernatural." If you are saying that any genuinely supernatural (i.e. outside this natural universe) event occurs in the universe, then you're not a deist.

Again, those words were in the definition YOU provided so I went with them. I'm saying the so-called supernatural or something outside of the natural universe is NOT supernatural and outside the universe. How can it be supernatural or outside the natural universe if God made it or caused it to happen and this is all one universe? Thats a label you and others rolled with, not myself and surely not others who understand what I'm talking about.

Saying that God planned for all that would occur in the universe before the universe was created does not constitute deism.

No one said or implied that, please read the post again. Look at it like this. If you were to observe a light in the sky, and come to find out that light is actually from a planet that exploded, does your viewing or knowledge of that light mean the explosion happened near the time you saw the light?

For if it did, then all theists (i.e. those who believe in a supreme being of omnimax capacity) would be deists, and thus the term "deism" would lose distinctive meaning.

I already addressed this a couple of comments ago.

Concerning the words in itallics that you typed, those definitions were provided so you could see that there are several definitions for what a deist is and that there is no one 'school' as you've led yourself to believe. You choosing to comment on them and address them is perfectly fine by me.

If you truly are a deist, that is quite different from how I understood you to be before. I've always understood you to be a believer in divine revelation, especially pertaining to Biblical texts.

Again, there are many branches of deism, you simply don't understand the ONE basic thing the majority have in common, and it has nothing to do with Jesus, the bible, revelation or anything like that.

So with that being said, if you have the time read this book:

Surprised by the Voice of God
ISBN-10: 0310225582
ISBN-13: 978-0310225584

We won't break any ground here until you educate yourself on the subject, so I'll continue to be the non-deist deist and let you have the last word.

 

[SeriouslyThug]

Come and take a neurobiology class with me, then you can comment on my understanding of consciousness

exactly

 

[SeriouslyThug]

I don't understand what exactly the question is

If you mean whether it is justified to kill a lot of people in order for everybody else to survive / live better, the answer is positive. We should always be aiming at maximizing human happiness in the long term. This can expressed as a mathematical function and if maximizing it involves reducing the number of people, then so be it

idiot

 

[Contagious Locc]

really?
thank you

don't leave. you should stay...regardless of what someones input is im pretty sure its appreciated unless you're just trying to get underneath someones skin. 20sixx does a pretty good job at monitoring the forum so if he thought you were just talking and not contributing he wouldve gave you the boot.

this is my favorite forum, well its actually the only one i come to now, and whether i agree or disagree with someone i enjoy/respect everyones opinion on here.

 

[Ethereal]

Once again, it is very easy to see things on the surface and not so easy to see what lies below it.

Religion is a lot more to blame for Hiroshima than science, ultimately humanity has benefited from this research program and could have benefited even more if it wasn't, again, for religion and the inadequate mode of thinking it imposes on whole societies

You just need to be able to track the causality chain to its very root and your eyes will open for a lot of things. But this requires being able to think analytically and objectively, and these are qualities that few people have. Guess why? That's right, because religion is that "Virus of the mind" that poisions everything and everybody and prevents them from being able to think analytically and objectively.

You've stated your claim, as has Mr. Nice Guy, that religion has more to do with Hiroshima [than science], yet I have read/heard nothing from either one of you to validate this claim. All historical events concerning religious war being brought up completely undermine the subject at hand; the bomb which was dropped over Hiroshima, devastating in all its form, was made possible through the use of science. The driving force behind the use of the bomb was political agenda, not religion.

But we are not limited to this single event; I would say that most of the major wars fought over the past century were based on agenda more than anything else, including religion. But if we can't get past a single event (Hiroshima) there is no point in going any further.

All wars will not be based on a conflict of religious views. However, all wars will use weapons obtained through the use of science to destroy. Weapons of mass destruction, global warming, methamphetamine (to name a few); all byproducts of science. All dangerous.

Just so you both know, I understand part of your point. Science doesn't grow legs, run around and kill people. But religion is not a prerequisite for using science to kill, and it is because of science that the number of people dying, especially in a time of war, are growing exponentially.

 

[ThaG]

idiot

argumentation?

 

[ThaG]

You've stated your claim, as has Mr. Nice Guy, that religion has more to do with Hiroshima [than science], yet I have read/heard nothing from either one of you to validate this claim. All historical events concerning religious war being brought up completely undermine the subject at hand; the bomb which was dropped over Hiroshima, devastating in all its form, was made possible through the use of science. The driving force behind the use of the bomb was political agenda, not religion.

But we are not limited to this single event; I would say that most of the major wars fought over the past century were based on agenda more than anything else, including religion. But if we can't get past a single event (Hiroshima) there is no point in going any further.

All wars will not be based on a conflict of religious views. However, all wars will use weapons obtained through the use of science to destroy. Weapons of mass destruction, global warming, methamphetamine (to name a few); all byproducts of science. All dangerous.

Just so you both know, I understand part of your point. Science doesn't grow legs, run around and kill people. But religion is not a prerequisite for using science to kill, and it is because of science that the number of people dying, especially in a time of war, are growing exponentially.

I think I write clearly enough and if I don't, I can't do it better

Once again, nobody's reading and understanding what I say

A problem with our world does not need to be directly caused by religion or religious conflicts to have religion as its primary cause.

You have to look at the whole chain of cause and effect events and see what started it to be able to understand the primary causes of what happens around you

In the case of war, non-religious war specifically, I can give you a very shortened version of this chain of causes and effects:

religion => lack of awareness of the connection between human activity and the environment => overpopulation and resource exhaustion => war

this is a very simple representation of what's going on in the real world, but it captures the main points

 

[rekomstop]

don't leave. you should stay...regardless of what someones input is im pretty sure its appreciated unless you're just trying to get underneath someones skin. 20sixx does a pretty good job at monitoring the forum so if he thought you were just talking and not contributing he wouldve gave you the boot.

this is my favorite forum, well its actually the only one i come to now, and whether i agree or disagree with someone i enjoy/respect everyones opinion on here.

thank you!
the bolded part is all i wanted to say, in the midst of all this misunderstanding, we must take a step back from that state of mind, and realize how we can grow from this moment.

=) i'm just a very friendly person