Axiomatic Economics by Victor Aguilar: Socrates and Hume at Billiards::
Socratic Dialogue with David Hume on Milton Friedman and positivism. of money divided by the price level, and another variable, R, the interest rate.
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desire and need to worship something, or someone?
Why is there such a universal religious sense within humanity?
2)Where does all of the incredibly complex information come from that is stored within DNA? Information doesnâ ™t just appear by itself. Someone has to put it there. God.
3)What about the evidence of design in all of creation? It is obvious that anything that is designed has to have an intelligent creator. For example, a computer never came about by mere accident, but had to have been thought out and planned by an intelligent designer. It is the same with creation, and more so, as the natural world is far more complicated than anything humanity can create. God is the answer.
4)How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Jesus Christ?
5)Isnâ ™t it a bit extreme to assert "God does not exist"?
I have more, but I will have to wait as I am running out of space and questions for the day.
Our innate desire to worship some authority comes from our evolution as social animals.
God wouldn't have put chunks of deactivated amphibian and reptile genes in the human genome, but evolution would have.
Species don't appear to be intelligently designed; in fact morphology is filled with rather unintelligent designs that have obviously been cobbled togther by natural selection.
People of all kinds of contradictory religions testify as to miracles. I met someone last month who claimed he was miraculously healed by the living goddess Kumari.
I find it extreme to assert supernatural forces exist in the absence of any evidence.
If you have more I'm sure I can respond point by point.
1. Fear of death.
2. That's rather convenient, isn't it. It's complex, so rather than try and find an answer, we'll just attribute the cause to a deity.
3. See #2.
4. Have you ever heard the term "opiate for the masses"?
5. Perhaps, but no more extreme, and far less a leap of logic, than to claim "God is the answer"
1. Humanity has an innate desire to have answers. Humanity has an innate curiosity that is insatiable, and when we don't find answers, our imagination takes over if we don't know any better.
2. Abiogenesis.
3. If there were a designer, he should be fired for all the stupid mistakes he's made.
4. The same way I explain the millions of people who testify to a life changing experience through Buddha, Allah, and Krishna.
5. I don't assert that as if I know it for sure. I don't. I just think it's so bloody unlikely as to be laughable.
I was busy working, jackas*. Incidentally, you posted this at 12:31 PST - right in the middle of my lunch hour when Im out having lunch with friends, not eating alone in the bathrooms like others....
Id like to thank whoever wrote me and alerted me to this question so that I could respond...
1)Desire and need to worship?? I dont seem to have this innate desire and need (and neither do any other atheists on earth), so obviously you are wrong on that point... And, after 50K years of humans telling stories and myth about Gods and religion, its become part of who we are - at least some of us.
2)So, complexity can only be created by a God? If complexity requires creation, then whatever created it would have to be even more complex. Seeing as this Creator is even more complex than its creation, then it too requires a creator. So, who created God? Oh, he always existed, right.... why cant the same be said for the Universe and life itself??? Why does GOD have to be the answer?
3)You need to learn the difference between an inanimate object and an animate one. Yes - all inanimate objects have been "created". But God is not the answer for how life arrived on earth (Abiogenesis might be, though.). Arent you curious to know the truth, or would you rather that we stop the search for how life came to be, because you think you already know the answer - God? Incidentally, if you would like a blow by blow account of how the eye evolved, I could provide you with that. Or, you could assume that your Perfect God created an imperfect eye that is backwards and upside down with light having to pass though acrimal cells and rods and cones prior to it reaching the nerve endings that detect the light... Oddly, the eye appears exactly as it should if it evolved from more simpler eyes - and looks nothing like it should if it were created by a perfect creator... Irreducible complexity is not an argument you want to start with me, as I shall tear it to shreds.
4)The same way I explain the changed lives of millions of Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists - its a personal experience. If Buddha changes the life of a person, do you think your God should be given credit for that?
5)Isnt it a bit extreme to assert that God does exist?? I am no more arrogant in my beliefs than you are in yours.
Five for five, pal. All refuted, easily, I might add. Care to try again, or have you had enough?
An innate desire to worship a god? No, I don't see that being the case. I would say that we have a vulnerability to believing comforting fairy tales. If we have an innate desire to worship a god, you would have to explain the rising number of non-religious and atheists in the most developed countries where people have access to information and education.
There are several things about our nature that make us prone to religion, I think. For example, we are a social (pack) animal, so we tend to follow strong and charismatic leaders. This not only makes it easier for an evangelist to gather a following and convince them, it also makes the idea of an omnipotent-god-alpha-male appealing.
1. It's a remnant from when we're children and believe that our parents are all-powerful. It's easier to make sense of a world if we believe there's a parental figure to protect us.
2. The claim that "information doesn't appear by itself" is a mistake. First, you would need a rigorous definition of information. Additionally, you would need to demonstrate that no natural process could ever form something that fits the definition of information. Without either of these, the claim that information doesn't appear is really impossible to evaluate.
3. The apparent design is the result of natural selection, in which organisms adapt over long periods of time to their environment. Read Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" if you don't get this concept.
3b. The claim that everything complex requires something more complex to design it leads to an infinite regression. (Who designed God?)
4. There are also millions of people throughout history who have had life-changing experiences through music. Should I worship music?
5. No. It's the best interpretation of the available evidence.
Why don't you like So-crates? What did he ever do to you?
You don't know much about DNA do you.
http://www.dnaftb.org/dnaftb/
Please read then answer
As for religion and God and Jesus
http://www.freudfile.org/psychoanalysis/...
http://www.braungardt.com/Essays/Freud's...
http://www.geocities.com/nephilimnot/hor...
Humanity in general does NOT "...have an innate desire and need to worship something, or someone?" Just gullible, irrational people have that innate desire and need... sane, rational people do not. Just because you are gullible and irrational does not mean that EVERYONE is. Projecting like that is a common mistake that humans often make. For example, I used to think that since I employed 'critical thinking' skills, that everybody else did the same. Come to find out, I was badly mistaken... in fact, it seems that less than 10% of the population even has the POTENTIAL for employing critical thinking skills. It is evident that you are a part of the remaining 90%.
Your question reveals that the foolishness which serves you as a substitute for knowledge and reason is a logical fallacy (a flaw in thinking) known as the "Argument From Incredulity"... which is a sub-category of the "Argumentum ad Ignorantiam" (Argument From Ignorance). It is also known as the 'Divine Fallacy'. It goes something like this: "I can't conceive of (or imagine) how this might have come to be; therefore, God did it."
That does not point to a limitation of science, or of nature... rather, it illuminates a limitation of YOUR knowledge and/or intellect. Also, it is intellectually dishonest, since it does not (as scientists do) ACKNOWLEDGE the limitation of knowledge... it merely invokes the fanciful idea of a supernatural creator-entity to manifest the ILLUSION that your ideas correlate to 'facts'. Finally... it reveals that you presume, for yourself, a form of omniscience... thinking that goes like this: "If this were understandable, then I should be able to understand (or imagine) it. Since I do NOT (can not) understand (or imagine) it... it logically follows that it is NOT understandable... by ANYONE. Since it is NOT understandable by anyone, it logically follows that it cannot be 'true'. Therefore... God did it." (See? Right back to the Argument from Incredulity.)
'Faith' (wishful, magical thinking) is a lame and pathetic substitute for 'evidence'.
'Belief' (the internalized 'certainty' that you are privy to the 'truth' pertaining to some fundamental aspect of existence and/or reality) is a lame and pathetic substitute for 'knowledge'... i.e., it is the ILLUSION of knowledge.
faith + belief --> self-deception, self-delusion and willful ignorance
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance... it is the illusion of knowledge." ~ Daniel Boorstin
"When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Religion." ~ Robert M. Pirsig
THINK about this... seriously... THINK... you believe that a cosmic Jewish zombie, who is his own father, can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him that you accept him as your master so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced, by a talking snake with legs, to eat from a magical tree... (etc.)... and that there is something horribly wrong with people who ARE NOT so gullible and droolingly stupid as to believe such outrageously ridiculous codswallop.
Now... here's a NEWS FLASH: sane people do not believe such nonsense.
.
Hmm I guess I missed out on that "innate desire and need to worship something or someone" I feel no such desire or need in fact I hate the idea of that
2) It comes from mutation... nobody has to "put it there' as you say it can accumulate over time in a biological organism. Where do you think viruses get the information needed to become immune to vaccines?? they are exposed and they adapt. It's like learning.. you weren't born knowing everything were you?
3) Well if that is true then you have to admit that god is an incredible design and so must have a designer, then that designer must have a designer and so on into infinity ad nauseum... By the way a computer is not a living being it cannot change, it cannot adapt it cannot mutate. You are saying eveything came about instantly with all its complexities intact.. I'm saying life started out simple and became more complex by adapting to the information in the environment and discarding irrelevant information, in favor of useful information. It's like learning for DNA... except its in a school where if you don't learn the right thing you die and you never pass on what you learned... Ha look at the first computers compared to the ones of today, they didn't start out perfect we learned as we went and changed things.. discarded parts that didn't really add to the design and kept and improved upon others that did.. see? not so hard to imagine is it?
4) How do you explain all the other religions throughout history whos followers claimed the same thing? How do you explain the people who testify to a life changing experience with Zeus or Odin or the Goddess??
5) Isn't it a bit extreme to assert "God does exist"? How about admitting you don't know if God, Zeus, Anubis, Odin, Allah, Krishna or any other god/s exist you just have your own beliefs.. How about you look around and say I don't know but I am not going to claim I do?? Why don't we seperate belief from knowledge and pursue each seperately??
Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from ::
Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to .. The hostility some Athenians felt toward Socrates after the violence of the
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0009:chapter=14:section=12HOME |
Socratic Citizenship:::
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTMLentailed by the inconsistency of the set of claims {P, Q, R}. What Socrates shows is not. that P is false, but only that at least one proposition in the
http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~robert.talisse/SokCitizen_web.pdfHOME |
The only innate characteristic I can see that contributes to human belief in religion is our inherent fear of the unknown and our innate drive to try and explain it.. Religion gives you all the answers doesn't it? All the comfort you could want because it removes all unknowns... Sorry I prefer questioning and living with the trepidation of not knowing but being willing to learn and search for that knowledge.
1. The innate need to worship something doesn't really exist. You are referring to curiosity. Humans are naturally curious and do feel the need to satisfy that. As a result we are prone to make up answers to problems we cannot solve. That is where religion comes from, and explains why there are thousands of different flavored religions. Worship doesn't exist in many cultures so it is not innate.
2. DNA is made up of Amino Acids, Amino Acids can be "spontaneously" created by applying electricity to basic elements that were around when the world was in an infant form. Just because we haven't yet created a clear path for how DNA developed or evolved, doesn't mean we should assign it to God. With that reasoning, we would never have understood disease and would still be claiming the plague was caused by an angry God instead of spread by rats. Millions of people would be dying of many diseases that curious scientists have found the cause for and in many cases have cured. Religious reliance and assigning creation to God has always lead to a stop in understand and education, why would we trust you that God made DNA now when that was the religious claim for the plague?
3. You are assigning evidence of design in creation because you cannot fathom anything so complex existing without a creator. While that is a nice thought, it isn't accurate. For instance, if you look at the millions of events that needed to take place in order for Hitler to come to power and cause the extermination of the Jews, it is easy to say these were too complex to have happened on accident, therefor God must have wanted to exterminate the Jews. I am sure you wouldn't agree, but using your logic for intelligent design that must be the case. It is hard to consider that we might just be a cosmic accident, until you understand the immense size of the universe, and realize that in our Galaxy alone there are likely 600,000,000,000 chances for life to exist. This is based on the fact that there are 4 objects in our small solar system that could house life. Earth, Mars, Titan, and Europa. There are 150 Billion stars in the Milky way, all with planetary systems and moons. When you consider that there are more galaxies in the universe than grains of sand on the earth, then the odds get even better. There is a greater likely hood that life should exist in this universe, than shouldn't.
4) I personally love this one, because it states that people have led better lives and give God the glory therefor he exists. That argument doesn't work, because that means Vishnu is real, and Thor is banging his hammer in the clouds. Millions and millions of humans throughout history claim that their God is responsible for their good behavior, or great lifestyle. That doesn't mean that all Gods are real does it? Are leprechauns real because druids used to believe they made people crazy?
Changed lives are a great thing, and if people need to rely on a deity to straiten up, then great, but that isn't evidence, it is just emotional response.
5. Its not extreme at all given the complete lack of evidence. It is extreme to build doctrine around a belief in God that is purely emotional when history has shown us that emotional and faith based belief causes people to do horrendous things to one another.
Is it extreme to assert that Leprechauns are myth and do not exist? Why not, they have the exact same burden of proof and amount of true evidence as your version of God.
I know it is tough to finally realize that everything you were taught may be based on incorrect reasoning, but hang in there, it is worth the pain to get through it. It took me years, but I am a much happier person for it.
1.) The short answer is: humanity DOESN'T have that need.
We're the living proof.
2.) Three billion years' worth of mixing and matching of chemical compounds, with the useful bits being passed on and the useless bits going the way of the dodo. You can get a lot done in three billion years.
3.) Go read "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins, if you genuinely want to understand how random mutation and natural selection, over time, can create the illusion of design.
4.) Do the victims of the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the Salem witch-hunts count among the millions whose lives were changed on account of Jesus?
5.) In the interest of intellectual honesty, most atheists will freely admit that yes, there is a possibility that God exists -- but if you had started writing out the odds at the beginning of time, you would still be writing zeroes to one against, 13.5 billion years later. Can you say the same -- that it's possible that you and your brethren have been bamboozled all this time?
Ok - let's assume that it is a god - which one?
Zeus, Apollo, Allah, Krishna ?
I'm guessing you want us all to believe in YOUR GOD but there are lots and lots of choices out there.
human nature is to be impressed by good story telling
It's funny. Your logic says anything thats designed needs a creator, yet, the creator, himself, needs no designer?
I can't stand poor logic like that.
I believe it is a human need to invent a deity to answer our unanswerable questions, like where do we come from.
Testimonies are imaginations or brainwashing. Most likely brainwashing. Look at our president. He quit drinking because he found the will power to do so but he thinks God did it. Some preacher told him that and he believed it. Brainwashing.
I am a deist. I think there is a God who created our souls and was an intelligent designer. Evolution took over and He walked away.
I will never accept a religion that is based on an evil deity that is plagued with human flaws like jealousy. A deity would not murder it's creations. Fear of imaginary places is used to control people who cannot think for themselves.
1) well the early religions were simply worshipers of the sun and earth, naturally as this is what gives us the ability to live.
almost every modern religion has its roots in this type of worship
2) your claim that "Someone has to put it there" is fallacious and unfounded. We are just recently unlocking the secrets of DNA, stay tuned. To say that DNA had to be designed by a god is just a rehash of Paley's watch argument.
3) Oh wow, 3 is paleys watch argument, ill let you look this one up as its flaws have been known for a long time
4) Probably the same way that you explain the miliions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with buddah, allah, joseph smith, on and on
5) maybe. it would probably by philosophically better to say "it is highly unlikely that a god exists"
1.Because the human brain developed so much that we began to ask questions, and religion answered those questions for them.
2. You have got to be kidding me. DNA comes from your parents, as with each generation there is mutation and there is junk DNA left over.
3.What evidence of a creator of creators? by your logic we would need an eternity of creators first creating each other and then creating us, in which case there would be more than one god....
4.I'd say they are full of ****.
5. Not as extreme as claiming he is there so you better convert or you will burn in hell (which apparently must also exist) and insisting on basing your society on it, even though you have zero evidence. (no the earth itself does not count as evidence for your LONELY god)
Ooh, apolgetics. Yummy.
"Why is there such a universal religious sense within humanity?"
Ever hear of atheists? They're part of humanity. As for the religious folks, they are attempting to explain things they don't understand with something unexplainable (gods).
"Where does all of the incredibly complex information come from that is stored within DNA?"
Have you taken a biology class? Read a biology book? If you don't understand DNA and really want to understand it, you should educate YOURSELF on the subject. Explaining the origins, functions, and processes of DNA is beyond the scope of this forum.
"What about the evidence of design in all of creation?"
There is no evidence for design. Matter and energy react in predictable ways. "Life" is one of the predictable ways.
"How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Jesus Christ?"
How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with [insert religious leader/prophet/deity here]? It's called "mass delusion," and is a symptom of brainwashing or mental illness.
"Isnâ ™t it a bit extreme to assert 'God does not exist'?"
Yes. Many assertions are extreme. Like "God will burn you in Hell for all eternity if you aren't Christian."
Now THAT is extreme.
The word "innate" means instinctive, a behavior that is part of an organism's inherited survival strategies. I see no evidence of this among humans or any other animals. As far as I can tell, religiosity is instilled by parents who indoctrinate their own children with the same religious "infection" they themselves carry. The "universal religious sense" you speak of is a strictly cultural phenomenon and has nothing whatever to do with instinctive behaviors we inherit from our ancestors.
2.) This question is moot, since religiosity is not innate.
3.) I suspect your religious inclinations have prevented you from learning the truth about evolutionary dynamics. Not only is evolution the literal origin of the species, but evolutionary principles operate in other disciplines. Computer programs are routinely written that use evolutionary principles to autonomously evolve unique solutions to very complex problems. The mammalian immune system "evolves" the proper response to every immunological threat. The most promising explanations of how a brain creates consciousness use evolutionary principles to describe how billions of neurons can each atonomously evolve thousands of interconnections with other neurons. The brain is a massively parallel processor that uses evolutionary principles to manage its own operation.
4.) People who testify about life changing religious experiences necessarily describe subjective experience. Once a person realizes solipsism is not a valid explanation for reality, subjective religious experience is little more than a bad joke. What people think or perceive has nothing whatever to do with reality.
5. ) The fact that even the most devout believer is completely unable to provide one shred of reliable evidence to support their assertion that God actually exists, proves that He doesn't. By definition, if God were to "exist" He would have to be part of reality. If He were part of reality, there would be tangible evidence. Since no such evidence exists, God is not part of reality and cannot be said to actually exist. Believers often try to weasel out of this by retroactively claiming that God exists in either a "spiritual realm," or "outside of time." This only makes matters worse, because one must then prove a spiritual realm actually exists before next proving God actually exists within it. Since the entire universe consists of space-time, there is not one place that is outside of time -- unless one claims God exists outside of the universe. Again, by definition, if God were outside of the objective universe, He could never be said to actually "exist."
EDIT: Don't assume So-crates has "backed down." He may have been elsewhere and didn't come back until your question scrolled off the bottom of the page. I don't know why you seem to have it in for him. So-crates is a very smart fellow and everyone here (except you?) thinks well of him. Before you cross swords with him, I suggest you do your homework.
You are projecting your own needs and desires onto other people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologic...
1) Because it is easier to believe in someone else responsible for all, looking after us, and a death that isn't really death as there is an afterlife
2) Information doesnâ ™t just appear by itself, that is called genetic changes due to external pressures. Darwin, Darwin, Darwin... By the way, we have much less genes than originally thought and some of it was added by viruses.
3) So who created the creator? And by the way, it is obvious that human made objects have creators, I am less sure about a blade of grass and the human body is so poorly designed that if there was a creator he should be ashamed of himself.
4) How do you explain the changed lives of millions of people throughout history who testify to a life changing experience with Buddha?
Or are you talking about the victims of the European religious wars? That certainly was a life changing experience for them.
5) Isnâ ™t it a bit extreme to assert "God exists" without proof but blind faith?
1) Because with self-awareness comes questions, with questions come the understanding of our own mortality, with the understanding of our own mortality comes fear, fear produces rejection of the idea of death...which leads to the insane idea of an afterlife.
2) Information in DNA? Its called evolution.
3) It is obvious that anything that is designed has to have had a creator? And your evidence for this 'obvious' fact is????
4) Life changing experience with god? Wishful thinking.
5) It is not extreme to say god does not exist...neither does the other 4,899 gods identified in human history.
1) Humans from early on, before scientific research, came up with primitive ways to explain patterns in their daily life. Superstitions and religions and so on. I think its fairly obvious that people have a hard time letting go of tradition no matter how absurd it is.
2)God doesn't answer anything, to say "god did it" doesn't solve why or how exactly. The "god of gaps" gets smaller and smaller the more science figures out.
3)So in other words if something isn't simple then a magic man in the sky did it? Theres explanations of how complex living organisms came to be the way they are, and they are much more thorough than the creationists "god did it and thats it" argument.
4)How can you explain the millions of people throughout history who testify a life changing experience with the countless other prophets and mythological beings? Neuroscience is explaining more and more. Just because someone fully believes a magical being talks to them doesn't make it true. Look at people in mental institutions, they believe just as wholeheartedly as the pious christian.
5) Not at all, when there is evidence for a god then it is reasonable to debate it. Coming to the conclusion god exists because you can't disprove him is about as logical as saying the flying spaghetti monster exists merely because you can't disprove him.
The only reason you believe that humanity has a desire and need to worship something is because it says that in the bible. Humans do not need to worship anything - that is a taught behavior.
lol you called out SOCRATES???
anyway i can't answer all of your questions because i haven't studied those subjects. all i can do is ask you why you don't believe in any of the other 40,000 gods or goddesses.
if you can get to a point where you understand that question you will understand atheists.
Could you link to the "challege" please?
I think it's because it was safer and easier to believe there was something out there bigger than they were (millions of years ago).
Every "people" has believed in something bigger than themselves such as giving sacrifices to a Sun god.
I think it's normal......and I also think it's not ever going to change.
There is a difference between something that you acquire socially than something that is inborn. If belief in god was innate, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Just like a child can recognize their mother from birth, we would be able to recognize our divine creator.
Don't. You don't owe anyone a response or an explanation for your beliefs. Answer sincere questions sincerely and the rest is merely entertainment.
1) a desire for easy answers. "God Did It!"
2) look up evolution. It has been gone through countless times before.
3) There is no evidence of design. Behe, the poster boy for Intelligent Design, admitted as such under oath at the Dover trial.
For a disproof of ID look up sickle cell anemia as an example of Bloody Stupid Design:
Why have a resistance to disease when that resistance can kill you? ID would produce a safe version of resistance.
Why do only Africans have resistance when lots of other people are exposed to Malaria?
4) How do you explain the devotion to the Hindu gods? They have been around longer so they must be close to the original true religion. How do you explain the devotion of Muslims. Islam is the latest main religion so is the most refined. How do you explain the devotion to the Greek gods? The Aztec gods? The Norse gods? What does it take to make your realize the inanity of this question?
5) No. I have the same evidence for unicorns, dragons and mermaids existing as I do for god (ie none except for some reports in old books). If you believe in god, why do you not believe in unicorns, dragons and mermaids?
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"Socrates of R&S" and other atheists: My response to your challenge: Why does humanity seem to have an innate. 
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