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Dogmatic Atheism

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midgard

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #210 on: January 18, 2007, 10:59:39 AM »
Quote from: "Sanirius"
Have you thought of something yet?


As in a purpose for the existance of the human species? No, I'll leave that up to you.

If you can't answer it your argument about individuals' purposes being to reproduce for the species seems pretty lame.

We're not just organs in a body.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we are supreme individuals - I'm just saying that we aren't important as either an individual or as a collective species. We have no purpose.
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skeptical scientist

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #211 on: January 18, 2007, 11:16:52 AM »
When you ask "does life have a purpose", what do you even mean? The word implies that there is some being who intends something with life. If there were a creator, one might well ask what his purpose was when creating life, but since life, the universe, and everything appears to have come about naturally, there is no entity who exists to have a purpose in creating life or the universe.

Of course, there are many other entities whose purpose you could mean. One could reasonably ask whether your parents had a purpose in having you. The answer to that would, of course, depend on who you and your parents are. You could ask whether you have a purpose for your own life. Perhaps your purpose is to have a happy family life. Perhaps your purpose is to become a great scientist. Perhaps your purpose is to rid Germany of all Jews.

In any case, only thinking beings and their actions can have purposes, because purpose implies reasoning and intent, which are impossible for natural processes. A rock doesn't have a purpose for rolling down a hill. But just because humanity came about without being intended by a divine creator doesn't mean that your parents didn't have a purpose in having you, or that you can't have a purpose for your own life.
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Masterchef

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #212 on: January 18, 2007, 12:48:38 PM »
Quote from: "Sanirius"
Lets see what you mean: "We dont have a purpose, we exist to exist" ?
Well you and me cant exist forever. To... somehow... exist forever, we have to reproduce, that way our species will keep existing. We exist to exist, but also to make sure our species keeps existing.

No, we do not exist to exist. Like I said, we have no purpose.
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beast

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #213 on: January 18, 2007, 04:25:31 PM »
Quote from: "Sanirius"

Seems you dont understand that i DO understand you. I know evolution is pure random, and everything that comes with it. But, we are not feeling evolution at this moment, it's slowly changing us. But not in a way we remember how diffrent we looked a few years ago. We live NOW in our current forms. And now that we exist, that came so randomly due to evolution, our goal is to keep existing. But to do this, we have to reproduce or mankind will be gone over a hundred years. Get what I'm saying now?


Evolution is NOT random at all.  In fact evolution is the constant improvement and adaptation to the environment.  There is nothing random about evolution at all.  In fact evolution explains how the world could have got to where it is without direction or randomness.  Evolution is also not about "goals" at all.  Rather it is a naturally occurring phenomenon where life forms that are more likely to survive out survive things that are less likely to survive.  It's not that either life form has the purpose of surviving, that's just what it does - in the same way that water runs down hill.  The water has no mind or purpose, it just behaves the way it does because of the laws of physics.  Life is the same - it's not that we have a reason to exist, although we can certainly give our lives the meaning we want them to have, I'm obviously talking in more general terms - we simply do survive for longer if we are better suited to surviving.  There is no purpose to that, it's simply what happens - just like water running down hills.
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Knight

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #214 on: January 18, 2007, 05:03:32 PM »
Quote from: "beast"
There is nothing random about evolution at all.


While I do realize that natural selection is a cumulative process, isn't it a bunch of 'random' fluctuations within a species that turns out to be beneficial?  Perhaps random is not the word there.  But anyway, since there is something inherently random about the universe (quantum mechanics), doesn't this mean that there's at least something random about evolution?  I do realize that Richard Dawkins points out in The Blind Watchmaker how evolution is not random, but is he talking about random in the sense that I just mentioned or another?
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Astantia

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #215 on: January 18, 2007, 07:27:36 PM »
Quote from: "Knight"
Quote from: "beast"
There is nothing random about evolution at all.


While I do realize that natural selection is a cumulative process, isn't it a bunch of 'random' fluctuations within a species that turns out to be beneficial?  Perhaps random is not the word there.  But anyway, since there is something inherently random about the universe (quantum mechanics), doesn't this mean that there's at least something random about evolution?  I do realize that Richard Dawkins points out in The Blind Watchmaker how evolution is not random, but is he talking about random in the sense that I just mentioned or another?


The individual mutations are random, but only the most surviveable mutations are selected.  So, it's like drafting a football team.  Your pool of available players may be random, but only the best make the cut.
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beast

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #216 on: January 18, 2007, 09:47:59 PM »
And indeed, given a specific environment and a specific form of life, the evolution of that form of life is very predictable and completely follows the predictions made by evolutionary biologists in the vast majority of cases.
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Astantia

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #217 on: January 18, 2007, 10:26:12 PM »
Quote from: "beast"
And indeed, given a specific environment and a specific form of life, the evolution of that form of life is very predictable and completely follows the predictions made by evolutionary biologists in the vast majority of cases.


Please give me an example where scientists have predicted the evolution of an animal, and observed that evolution.
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beast

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #218 on: January 18, 2007, 11:01:02 PM »
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Astantia

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« Reply #219 on: January 19, 2007, 11:02:44 AM »
Quote from: "beast"
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=successful+evolution+predictions&btnG=Google+Search&meta=


There are thousands.


I'm sorry, I thought you had an example on hand that you were referring to.

I can't find anything on the first page of google, and I don't have time to go through and find it.  If you have an example, please post it, but otherwise, just doing a google search and posting the (rather poor) results isn't helping.
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Nomad

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #220 on: January 19, 2007, 11:11:37 AM »
From what it looks like:

Astantia is talking about scientists literally predicting evolutionary changes and physically watching them happen right now.

Beast is referring to looking at primitive organisms and predicting how they would have evolved and checking their predictions with the actual physical results of evolution we have today.

So don't get confused everyone.
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Astantia

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #221 on: January 19, 2007, 11:16:44 AM »
Quote from: "thedigitalnomad"
From what it looks like:

Astantia is talking about scientists literally predicting evolutionary changes and physically watching them happen right now.

Beast is referring to looking at primitive organisms and predicting how they would have evolved and checking their predictions with the actual physical results of evolution we have today.

So don't get confused everyone.


Okay.  Thanks.

Could I get some examples of that then?
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dysfunction

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #222 on: January 19, 2007, 01:43:30 PM »
Sure. Read this.
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beast

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #223 on: January 20, 2007, 08:17:03 AM »
Slightly relevant, I have a new blog :)

http://anatheistfuture.blogspot.com/
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Nomad

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #224 on: January 20, 2007, 09:33:39 AM »
Quote from: "beast"
Slightly relevant, I have a new blog :)

http://anatheistfuture.blogspot.com/


Bookmarked.  :)
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Ubuntu

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #225 on: January 20, 2007, 08:49:00 PM »
Quote from: "Knight"
But anyway, since there is something inherently random about the universe (quantum mechanics), doesn't this mean that there's at least something random about evolution?


If quantum mechanics is random, how can non-random processes exist on the macroscopic scale? What system does randomness use to operate?

Also, if you qualify the evidence people have for God as evidence for God, why isn't my ability to breathe evidence that you don't exist?


The meaning of life: a scientific analysis of teleology

A very promising idea about the purpose of life probably arised many years ago (it's a common statement that "biology debunked teleology a century ago"), although it has been further popularized recently. The "debunking" is said to have coincided with or resulted from advances in biological knowledge such as the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (i.e. the creation of the theory of natural selection). It is not unlikely however, that it was philosophized long before that teleology (perceived meaning or purpose) is an illusion, a system only valid or existent within our own minds, that has no grounding in reality and that ultimately there is no objective purpose to anything.

The proposition follows basically like this: setting goals and finding potential goals in physical objects and abstract ideas is an instinct deeply seated in the primate mind, as it was a characteristic fashioned by natural selection; part of the evolution of humanity's ancestors. This instinct, which is the search for purpose (or "meaning") is often known as teleology. Teleological thinking is useful in the natural (and modern) world, making it a favorable trait for  species to have. However, when we use this instinct when thinking philosophically about life, the universe, and everything, it misfires and we come up with an unsolvable conundrum - one which doesn't really exist in the first place. Teleological instincts apply well to physical objects such as food (purpose: to eat) but fail when they are attempted to be applied to the more abstract, like subjective experience. The failure of teleology can be demonstrated not just with abstract concepts, but objects that serve no known utility to human beings. What, for example, is the purpose of an asteroid floating around light years outside of this galaxy? We can objectively explain the cause of things like space rocks, but we must conclude, if we are to embrace teleological thinking, that either a) far away asteroids have no purpose or b) purpose doesn't exist in objective reality.

The argument about teleological thinking as a result of natural selection is put forward in various books and articles. The best-selling author and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins puts forward the explanation in his  Discovery Science video The Big Question: why are we here?.

This explanation of our famous (or infamous)  teleological conundrum is to many the most probable, satisfying, and ultimate answer we have attained for the problem of the meaning of life, especially since it is falsifiable and can be backed up with specific scientific evidence, such as neurological research, while it is already supported by general scientific evidence, such as the evidence for evolution.


Quote from: "Wikipedia"
Of the meaning of life, Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical positivists said: expressed in language, the question is meaningless. This is because "meaning of x" is a term in life usually conveying something regarding the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or that which should be noted regarding x, etc. So when "life" is used as "x" in the term "meaning of x", the statement becomes recursive and therefore nonsensical.

In other words, things in a person's life can have meaning (importance), but a meaning of life itself, i.e., apart from those things, can't be discerned. In this context, a person's life is said to have meaning (significance to himself and others) in the form of the events throughout his life and the results of his life in terms of achievements, a legacy, family, etc. But to say that life itself has meaning is a misuse of language, since any note of significance or consequence is relevant only in life (to those living it), rendering the statement erroneous. Language can provide a meaningful answer only when it refers to a realm within the realm of life. But this is not possible when the question reaches beyond the realm in which language exists, violating the contextual limitations of language. Such a question is broken. And the answer to a broken question is an erroneous or irrelevant answer.
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Knight

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #226 on: January 20, 2007, 09:38:00 PM »
Quote from: "Ubuntu"
Also, if you qualify the evidence people have for God as evidence for God, why isn't my ability to breathe evidence that you don't exist?


I don't know what you're talking about.
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beast

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #227 on: January 20, 2007, 09:51:54 PM »
Sorry for going off topic slightly.  I just wanted to share these emails from a friend :)

----

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Audiobook:

link to the audiobook

176 MB

Well worth the download and listen :-)

Love

  - Allan

---

Dude, Thanks, but I've already read that book about 4 times and
convinced the Mormons who visit me every week to read it as well.
Richard Dawkins is the man and he's given me so much confidence in
taking on religion.  In a dismal display of leadership, the only hope
for Australia recently voted on a stem cell research bill in
opposition purely on his religious beliefs.  There is much work that
needs to occur in Australia but if footbag has taught me anything, it
is that actions speak louder than words.

Cheers,

Beast
---

On 1/19/07, Beast wrote:
> Dude, Thanks, but I've already read that book about 4 times and
> convinced the Mormons who visit me every week to read it as well.

Nice! That's awesome :-) I am fortunate to live in an apartment where
I simply don't get solicitations from mormons (or anyone else for that
matter). But I've already burned a few CDs of this to give out to
anyone I come across with whom I get into the "god" debate with.


> Richard Dawkins is the man and he's given me so much confidence in
> taking on religion.

Personally, I can't believe that I've only recently "discovered" him.
I wish he was given more publicity than he has been.

I've always considered myself agnostic, but no more :-)


> In a dismal display of leadership, the only hope
> for Australia recently voted on a stem cell research bill in

I read about that; so very unfortunate. Canada isn't a whole lot more
progressive on that issue either :-(

Thanks for replying. I sent this email to about 20 people, and I'm
surprised at some of the positive responses I got . . .

I hope you're doing well!

 - Allan

---

Definitely made my day :) - Apart from the rain.  Richard Dawkins wins another again :).
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Masterchef

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #228 on: January 21, 2007, 09:57:21 AM »
Yeah, Bush vetoed the stem cell research bill based on his "personal beliefs". I hope our next president is an Atheist.
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Ubuntu

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Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #229 on: January 24, 2007, 02:41:42 PM »
Quote from: "Knight"
Quote from: "Ubuntu"
Also, if you qualify the evidence people have for God as evidence for God, why isn't my ability to breathe evidence that you don't exist?


I don't know what you're talking about.


I'm simply saying that if you make an observation and make a small jump to a conclusion, you've still made a jump, which is just about as bad as making a leap in reasoning.
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Ubuntu

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #230 on: January 28, 2007, 12:51:41 PM »
Quote from: "Dogplatter"
The presenter, Rod Little, claimed that inflexible atheism was at least as misguided as inflexible religious faith, interviewing eminent atheists and theists alike.


Atheism is flexible by its nature. There is no such thing as atheist dogma; science is about examining the evidence and coming to conclusions. The probability of God, given the current evidence, is barely nonzero. If there were significant evidence, or if such evidence ever arises, you will atheists become theists.

Quote from: "Dogplatter"
I was surprised he didn't bring up the "Brights organization" (essentially a church of atheism) which I think Ubuntu referred us to a while ago.


Listed in the Brights' media exposure for 2006: "Filming of meetup on 4/9/2006 - a presentation by Martin Freedman followed by questions to the panel that included myself and Tom Morris.  Evidently we weren't nasty enough to be included in C4's 'The trouble with atheism', the destination for which the footage was intended."

If the Brights' is a church,  Greenpeace is a hospital.
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cmdshft

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #231 on: April 05, 2007, 08:25:29 AM »
NECROPOST FROM HELL!!!
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Miss M.

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #232 on: April 05, 2007, 09:55:57 AM »
what was the point in bumping?
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Masterchef

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #233 on: April 05, 2007, 11:21:31 AM »
Quote from: 17 November on April 05, 2007, 08:14:51 AM
Darkness vanishes in the presence of light, especially with much light.  Knowledge makes unknowing disappear, especially with much knowledge.  Think not of this as deprivation, but rather in terms of transcendence, and then you will be able to perceive something which is truer than all truth, namely, that the knowledge of God escapes those who possess extant light and knowledge of being.  His transcendent darkness is concealed from all light and hidden from all knowledge.  One who has seen God and understood what he saw did not see Him, but rather one of His creatures that are existing and known.  He Himself is unknowable and non-existant.  He does exist above all being and is known beyond the mind. This positively complete unknowing IS knowledge of Him Who is above all knowledge and being.

- Dionysios
Please have fun. :D
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Midnight

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #234 on: April 09, 2007, 04:04:18 PM »
Quote from: Nomad on December 19, 2006, 08:29:09 PM
Quote from: Erasmus
Quote from: thedigitalnomad
I don't believe that it is morally right for society to let parents teach their kids hate and intolerance.

Why?

What authority do you think we have to tell anybody what to teach their children?

Seems reasonable enough to argue that not allowing such intolerance to be taught will undoubtedly prevent future crimes based on that hate and intolerance.

Wrong. Human nature cannot be taught.
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Quote from: Raist on September 06, 2010, 07:48:56 PM
My problem with his ideas is that it is a ridiculous thing.

Genius. PURE, undiluted genius.
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beast

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #235 on: April 10, 2007, 08:11:18 AM »
Quote from: 17 November on April 09, 2007, 03:45:04 PM
Quote from: beast
If we accept science, which is the pursuit of knowledge and of the fundamental truths of the world that are not effected by our perceptions then we can say that with all probability, no supernatural beings of any description exist.  We can't rule that out 100%, but we can rule it out 99.99%.

Beast's scientific reasonings are ofcourse fallacious in their own right, but to belabor such a point is incomparably petty and immaterial to the theme of my previous post above.

Explain yourself.  And don't give me any of that rubbish from your last post.  If you can't provide evidence that what you're saying is true, don't bother saying anything, because none of us really care what delusions a crazy nazi has if he can't back them up with evidence.
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Midnight

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #236 on: April 10, 2007, 10:50:13 AM »
Quote from: beast on April 10, 2007, 08:11:18 AM
Quote from: 17 November on April 09, 2007, 03:45:04 PM
Quote from: beast
If we accept science, which is the pursuit of knowledge and of the fundamental truths of the world that are not effected by our perceptions then we can say that with all probability, no supernatural beings of any description exist.  We can't rule that out 100%, but we can rule it out 99.99%.

Beast's scientific reasonings are ofcourse fallacious in their own right, but to belabor such a point is incomparably petty and immaterial to the theme of my previous post above.

Explain yourself.  And don't give me any of that rubbish from your last post.  If you can't provide evidence that what you're saying is true, don't bother saying anything, because none of us really care what delusions a crazy nazi has if he can't back them up with evidence.

Human nature sodomizes your stance. Period.
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Quote from: Raist on September 06, 2010, 07:48:56 PM
My problem with his ideas is that it is a ridiculous thing.

Genius. PURE, undiluted genius.
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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #237 on: April 10, 2007, 10:52:04 AM »
Quote from: Hara Taiki on April 05, 2007, 08:25:29 AM
NECROPOST FROM HELL!!!

TALES FROM THE CRYPT
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Nomad

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #238 on: March 11, 2009, 07:55:09 AM »
Way to go resurrecting a two year old thread.
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Nomad

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Re: Dogmatic Atheism
« Reply #239 on: March 11, 2009, 10:32:02 AM »
Oh, you know.  Still an atheist, still enjoying the winter solstice around December 22, still eating babies, the usual.
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