crescent moon question

You're not hearing me.

If there is a creation, there must be a Creator.

A Creator, by definition, not only created everything else, but he came to being himself. There's no Creator's Creator and Creator's Creator Creator and Creator's Creator's Creator's Creator (and so on). You've missed an important part of the definition of being a Creator (in capital letters). It's like this. I have a mother and father, but I could construct you a book. Nor only with word processing tools but I know the basics of bookbinding. I am lowercase creator, but ultimately all things have to travel back to a root source. You don't just get to turtles all the way down with this, a source is a source. If something has a Creator then it is by definition NOT the Creator.

If there is NOT a creation (as in atheistic thought), you must accept the idea that life in its simplest form is eternal as is the universe, and rather than a Big Bang, you have either a universe that doesn't move at all, or all life starts as simple bacteria, evolves under ideal conditions, and that no matter how you spray with antibacterial, the universe eventually folds back in on itself and bacteria, stars and planets, and even us humans are part of an eternal script.
That is, atheism to explain itself can either be a Static Universe (nothing ever really happens, which doesn't really square well with reality but whatever)  or a Cyclic Universe (where you could even try to blow the universe up, but after it folds in again, everything is undone, sorry). What it can't do is try to borrow thinking of a Created Universe without explaining for a Creator. That's nonsense.

Believe what you want, but don't steal ideas from me and then use them to try to argue against me. You have your own sets of cosmology. Learn about that, and you no longer have any need to undermine theism.

Yes, I understand the goal of atheism really is political, a goal of spreading secularism and socialism/communism. But when your goal involves hurting or controlling others, it's doomed to failure. This is what Jesus meant by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", he was teaching an important lesson about karma. Dictators and the like always fail because they try to bully or hurt people, and people hate them enough to strike back. Or they fail because they kill off all the competent people, and then slowly the system starves itself out. Read some history for a change. Your goals are doomed the moment they involve coercing people to accept your systems. Your goals are fulfilled the moment you learn from your past and try a better way.

So I'm giving you homework. Instead of trying to steal the Big Bang from some Catholic priest, you figure out a cosmology that is coherent, does actually make sense, and doesn't involve trying to undermine theism. I've given you two examples, you can use those, or come up with a third.

I think atheism is not the denial of a singular prime mover which created everything, but rather a denial that that single prime mover was a conscious entity, rather than a inanimate force of nature. I dont see atheists denying that the universe was "created"

You're not hearing me.

I am, I just recognise your claim is garbage.
Once more, it is addressed by a very simple question:
Can complex things exist without needing to be created by something as complex or more complex.

If yes, your god is not needed. If no, your god needs a creator.

Boldly asserting your god doesn't need a creator is special pleading.
It shows the dishonesty of your position.
If you think a human needs a creator, then to be intellectually honest you would also need to think your god needs a creator.

If there is a creation, there must be a Creator.

It is more the other way around. In order for it to be a creation, there must have been a creator that created it.
Until you can demonstrate that there was a creator that did create it, there is no reason to think this universe or life is a creation.

A Creator, by definition, not only created everything else, but he came to being himself.

So if a human creates something then they are a creator, that created everything, and doesn't need a creator?

You are trying to define in a dishonest double standard.
It is no better than the defining the universe as not needing a creator.
It is no more than a pathetic assertion.
As such, it does nothing to help your argument.

but ultimately all things have to travel back to a root source.

And as far back as we can go is the universe. There is no evidence of anything further back, nor any rational justification to think something is further back.
You wish to claim that we need to go further back, but then immediately turn around and say we don't need to go any further.
Such a position is intellectually bankrupt. The only intellectually honest way to assert that the universe needs a creator is to assert that creator also needs one.

If there is NOT a creation (as in atheistic thought), you must accept the idea that life in its simplest form is eternal as is the universe, and rather than a Big Bang

No, I don't.
That is if I believe your garabge.
Life can arise from the universe without life itself being eternal.
The Big bang is a change in state of the universe, not a beginning of the universe. It starts with a singularity, beyond which we currently do not have any capability to probe.
There is also speculation on how the universe will end. One possibility is a big-bounce, where the universe eventually stops expanding, starts contracting, reforms the singularity and gives rise to another big bang.

Believe what you want, but don't steal ideas from me and then use them to try to argue against me.

I'm not stealing your ideas. I'm demonstrating how your position is logically inconsistent.

Yes, I understand the goal of atheism

No, you don't.
Even that part of your statement alone is enough to show you don't.
There are no goals of atheism.
Atheism is merely the absence of accepting your delusional garbage.

If someone has never heard of a god before, by definition they are an atheist.
But because you can't rationally defend your delusional garbage you need to vilify atheism.

But when your goal involves hurting or controlling others, it's doomed to failure.

You mean like Christianity (and countless other religions)?

So I'm giving you homework.

How about you do your homework first?
Explain how the moon's phases work on a FE.

Quote from: bulmabriefs144 on April 26, 2023, 05:46:52 AM

You're not hearing me.

If there is a creation, there must be a Creator.

A Creator, by definition, not only created everything else, but he came to being himself. There's no Creator's Creator and Creator's Creator Creator and Creator's Creator's Creator's Creator (and so on). You've missed an important part of the definition of being a Creator (in capital letters). It's like this. I have a mother and father, but I could construct you a book. Nor only with word processing tools but I know the basics of bookbinding. I am lowercase creator, but ultimately all things have to travel back to a root source. You don't just get to turtles all the way down with this, a source is a source. If something has a Creator then it is by definition NOT the Creator.

If there is NOT a creation (as in atheistic thought), you must accept the idea that life in its simplest form is eternal as is the universe, and rather than a Big Bang, you have either a universe that doesn't move at all, or all life starts as simple bacteria, evolves under ideal conditions, and that no matter how you spray with antibacterial, the universe eventually folds back in on itself and bacteria, stars and planets, and even us humans are part of an eternal script.
That is, atheism to explain itself can either be a Static Universe (nothing ever really happens, which doesn't really square well with reality but whatever)  or a Cyclic Universe (where you could even try to blow the universe up, but after it folds in again, everything is undone, sorry). What it can't do is try to borrow thinking of a Created Universe without explaining for a Creator. That's nonsense.

Believe what you want, but don't steal ideas from me and then use them to try to argue against me. You have your own sets of cosmology. Learn about that, and you no longer have any need to undermine theism.

Yes, I understand the goal of atheism really is political, a goal of spreading secularism and socialism/communism. But when your goal involves hurting or controlling others, it's doomed to failure. This is what Jesus meant by "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", he was teaching an important lesson about karma. Dictators and the like always fail because they try to bully or hurt people, and people hate them enough to strike back. Or they fail because they kill off all the competent people, and then slowly the system starves itself out. Read some history for a change. Your goals are doomed the moment they involve coercing people to accept your systems. Your goals are fulfilled the moment you learn from your past and try a better way.

So I'm giving you homework. Instead of trying to steal the Big Bang from some Catholic priest, you figure out a cosmology that is coherent, does actually make sense, and doesn't involve trying to undermine theism. I've given you two examples, you can use those, or come up with a third.

I think atheism is not the denial of a singular prime mover which created everything, but rather a denial that that single prime mover was a conscious entity, rather than a inanimate force of nature. I dont see atheists denying that the universe was "created"

Actually, I've come to see it as a form of nihilism. I'd be fine with some kind of paganism (and indeed, the root of atheism was displaced pagan thought that had nowhere to go, as knowledge of the gods had largely left). In other words, because people in this day and age are embarrassed to worship Appollo, Hera, Zeus or Osiris, Ra, Thoth or Thor and Odin, they instead worship the cynical and self-destructive non-gods that helped build things like the arom bomb. Ask the Hindus how such science went. They'll be more than happy to tell you that history is cyclic and that there use to be "Brahma weapons", arrows that generated incredible light and tainted the water and almost blew everyone up.

I'd much prefer you be like the Wicca or the Druid and worship some sort of nature to telling me about science. The best of science makes life too easy and comfortable, creating the crisis of health that is diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Undeveloped places don't have such problems. The worst of it leads people into a state of such depression that they throw their lives away. Watching a godawful movie called Me Before You, where the guy couldn't get past that he used to have legs. Instead of a relationship with the lead gal, he pursues the idea of assisted suicide in Sweden or Norway or something. And don't get be started on the destructive weapons made by science. Occasionally it makes life better (not dying of malaria is nice), but if it isn't technology that shouldn't have been invented, it's crackpot theories most of the time.

In any case, I was watering plants again, and I thought of how randomized mist manages to derandomize enough to keep plants nearby moist (watering is boring, so it lends itself to strange observations like the one about rainbows). And then I thought of all those probabilities. The problem of actual atheism is that you have to manage all of those probabilities (they compare it to the odds of monkeys randomly typical Shakespeare word for word).
Both naturalistic polytheism and monotheism of any sort have an advantage over atheism. You know what it is? The ability to limit probability and to reroll.

Let's talk about probability limitation, since rerolling is obvious. So I'm also this same day programming code for RpgMaker, and I decide to experiment with the modulus (looks like %, but the code uses it to find remainders. As in, I can pick a number between 1 and 100,000,000,000 or more, and get a remainder as long as it is up to 10). Doing this, it doesn't matter how huge the number is, as you simply decide that the odds will be in your favor. Though I actually used the code to limit positive rolls with regard to battle (I was making a Final Fantasy 12 style battle awards chain, though I need to at some point randomize it a bit more, as the battle chain will likely always yield the same items). Basically, there's a huge probability so unless you screw with the probability, in the same ways as "randomly"  having the wind come up when you're spraying mist, you're talking about some severelt unlikely odds.

BB.

You talk of science as if it is somehow a separate entity that humanity can take or leave, that it is complicit in our destruction and somehow that believing in myths is the antidote, and while I have a degree of agreement that mythologies can be useful in telling stories of an ethical nature, they are both either discoveries or inventions of our minds in its attempt to make sense of existence.

If you use a religious text as you would a good novel or the legends of the old gods, they are flexible and useful in this sense, if however, you ascribe them as a fact, they are no longer as suitable as they become laws and lose the flexibility of context.

If science is used as a destructive force as it demonstrably has and continues to be, that again is at the behest of what we as a species choose to do with it, not an inherent flaw in the principles we discover.
There are almost certainly more scientists out there working on things that would benefit us and the earth than those working against it, but until we fully take possession of our actions and their consequences and stop believing that some holiness will step in to clean up the fuck ups, or that it is part of some unrevealed plan by a deeply fucked dictator divinity, we will remain like children running amok sure that the grown up will tidy our mess. 

Actually, I've come to see it as a form of nihilism.

And with that you are still suffering from the same issue.
You are trying to see atheism as something. It is the absence of something, specifically the absence of belief in a god.
The root of atheism is the default position to not believe in a fictional entity until you are told about it and somehow convinced to believe in it.
A big factor is that there is no reason to believe in a god.
It isn't anything more than that.

But because some theists can't stand the idea of people not having an imaginary fiend, so they come up with all sorts of nonsense about what atheism is.

The best of science makes life too easy and comfortable, creating the crisis of health that is diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Undeveloped places don't have such problems.

Yes, because they are diseases of the wealthy.
If you live in a poor developing country, you are more likely to die of malnourishment or some random disease.
But sure, go complain that you aren't likely to die of easily preventable things.

And then I thought of all those probabilities. The problem of actual atheism is that you have to manage all of those probabilities (they compare it to the odds of monkeys randomly typical Shakespeare word for word).
Both naturalistic polytheism and monotheism of any sort have an advantage over atheism. You know what it is? The ability to limit probability and to reroll.

No, theism has a massive disadvantage. Instead of starting simple and building complexity, with plenty of time and locations to do it; you just have an incredibly complex being simply exist without cause.
Just what odds do you think atheism needs?

Quote from: bulmabriefs144 on April 28, 2023, 01:13:23 AM

And then I thought of all those probabilities. The problem of actual atheism is that you have to manage all of those probabilities (they compare it to the odds of monkeys randomly typical Shakespeare word for word).
Both naturalistic polytheism and monotheism of any sort have an advantage over atheism. You know what it is? The ability to limit probability and to reroll.

No, theism has a massive disadvantage. Instead of starting simple and building complexity, with plenty of time and locations to do it; you just have an incredibly complex being simply exist without cause.
Just what odds do you think atheism needs?

Nothing is simple.  All view points start out with a massive disadvantage as there is so much that we don't know and will likely never know.

You can portray anything in a very simplistic manner, but once you start to examine it, there is nothing simple about it.

And as there an infinite amount that we don't know, the odds of who is more wrong doesn't really mean anything, as long as the search for more knowledge and understanding continues.

Nothing is simple.  All view points start out with a massive disadvantage as there is so much that we don't know and will likely never know.

If everything is starting with an equal disadvantage, then it isn't a disadvantage.

Regardless, again, atheism is not a viewpoint, it is the absence of a particular viewpoint.

Quote from: NotSoSkeptical on April 28, 2023, 04:29:58 PM

Nothing is simple.  All view points start out with a massive disadvantage as there is so much that we don't know and will likely never know.

If everything is starting with an equal disadvantage, then it isn't a disadvantage.

Regardless, again, atheism is not a viewpoint, it is the absence of a particular viewpoint.

Then the view point is different, thus a different viewpoint.  Semantics.

Then the view point is different, thus a different viewpoint.  Semantics.

No, it isn't merely that the viewpoint is different. It is literally the absence of a particular belief. It is not a different belief or opinion or the like to produce a different viewpoint.

It is like saying that asexual organism just have a different sex.

Atheism is not the absence of belief in God.

It is the belief that there is no God.

In much the same way as black is a color, not the absence of color. Now people might call it the absence of color, but I can get the pigment of black by rubbing a charcoal briquette on a piece of paper. Likewise, I can paint with white on a white canvas.



That's not an absence of color either, but a very difficult thing to do.

The absence of color would be clear.

An atheist has a stance on whether God exists or not. Other people are simply indifferent. That's the absence of religion. You have a religion.

Atheism is not the absence of belief in God.

Yes it is.
Dishonest theists which to pretend that atheism is a positive belief, so they can pretend the burden of proof is on the atheist to prove their is no god, as theist know they have no way to prove there is on; and so they can spout dishonest BS like atheism is a religion.

It is entirely possible to be an atheist with no strong feelings either way.
It is even possible to be an atheist with no idea what a god is.

It truly is quite simple, if you don't believe in a god, regardless of why and regardless of what you do believe, then you are an atheist.

I see your god similar to how I see unicorns (the fantasy ones, not rhinos), pixies, fairies and so on. There is no reason to believe in any of it.

The absence of color would be clear.

Clear and colourless are 2 drastically different things.
Clear means light can pass through.
You can have a coloured, clear object.
If something is unclear, it is turbid. For example, milk or mud.
Colour refers to having a difference in how light interacts with it so some wavelengths will pass through (or be reflected) while others aren't.

Now again, how about you stop deflecting and show us how much you really care about the truth by either providing an explanation for the Moon's phases which work on a flat Earth without appealing to magic, or admit you have none and that the Moon's phases show Earth is round?

Ahhh see, you're changing the subject because you see that things are uncomfy with that topic. You don't want to talk about how "atheism" really is a leftist Marxist religion of state, so you're trying to bounce back to topic. Telling me that I'm deflecting. But the topic is squarely here.

You're deflecting.

I've decided I don't need to talk about that, as I've already told you that angles (and angels) are responsible for the moon phases. Now the one that doesn't fly is responsible for the the bulk of what we see but an eclipse is a coordinated event. Usually the moon moves behind the sun at certain times of the month, and is across from the sun at others, perpendicular to sun at still others. I explained this about the first page.

Now stop deflecting and respond to my question. In what way is atheism not a religion? It has social gatherings...

It has ritual clothing...

It has a set of beliefs about everything from the environment to history (most of which are based on the notion of false equivalence between 1200 years of rape, pillaging, and murder by Islam with a few years of Crusades, followed by the Spanish Inquisition, and a couple ppl being witches from Christians, overlooking the vast number of wars and violent acts that were nonreligious). And it has a creation story too.

You don't want to talk about how "atheism" really is a leftist Marxist religion of state

Because the thread is about the inability of the FE to explain the phases of the moon.

I've decided I don't need to talk about that, as I've already told you that angles (and angels) are responsible for the moon phases.

You have spouted vague nonsense about angles, without actually explaining anything; and then when you ran out of excuses you appealed to a magic sky fairy.