Do You Believe In GOD

[SciFiAuthor]

Now I'm no experimental physicist, although I have been known to watch a great deal of The Big Bang Theory, but I would have to question the preciseness of simulating any part of the universe using computers, regardless of how (currently) powerful the processor(s), small the simulation, or broad the scope of the simulation.  It would seem to be like simulating the planet Earth by filling a shoe box with sand and throwing in a couple of earthworms as a dynamic. Essentially you're attempting to simulate an open system, which features an essentially infinite number of variables, and doing so in an extraordinarily limited way, featuring a closed system that contains no external influences.

It may be possible to use the universe to calculate itself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_physics

If so, problem solved. If not, then you'd need a computer the size of a planet to accomplish it. However, the human race may still be here in a million years, or there may be Class III alien civilizations out there that have been technological for a billion years or more. In which case, it's likely that they solved those issues over that amount of time and can do it. All you need is one civilization in the universe to create a simulation to make it overwhelmingly statistically likely that you live in a simulation and are subject to some sort of god.

You may get some interesting results, but how accurate are they in terms of representing an actual open, potentially multi-dimensional system which is largely made up of matter that we don't even understand, let alone have the capability to comprehensively simulate?

They would be as accurate as proper peer review and the scientific method conclude they are. I'm not saying that we'll have this answer tomorrow or even a century from now, I'm saying that if the universe is entirely understandable, a premise on which atheist philosophy depends, than we will eventually understand it enough  to simulate it. We already are attempting to on a rudimentary basis:

http://news.discovery.com/space/galaxies/mind-blowing-computer-simulation-recreates-our-universe-140507.htm

And again, I'm drawn towards philosophical questions raised by Kant and Nietzsche, which is that we're viewing and attempting to simulate a system that we may not even have the physical or intellectual capacity to even begin to comprehend. We can stare at the Cosmos, we can rationalise, measure, test, and observe to the absolute limit of human and mechanical capability, but what if those capabilities don't even  scratch the surface of 'reality'?

They probably don't scratch the surface of 'reality', which is why it becomes difficult to be a hard-core atheist the further you go down the rabbit hole of quantum physics. So what you do is build a computer so powerful that it *can* comprehend it and have it tell you the answers. 50 years tops, we'll have an AI supercomputer smarter than we are or we'll genetically or technologically alter ourselves to be able to comprehend the universe if we can't already. And if it turns out that nothing physical can ever comprehend it, well, then the God question will remain unanswerable and everyone will either have faith that one exists or faith that one doesn't exist and bicker about it for eternity each fully confident that they're right with no basis from which to do so.

Now I'm of the mind that science will probably go a long way towards solving many of the mysteries of the universe, probably at some point the theory, calculation, and results will have to be performed by computers or their successors, but at the same time humankind is still confined by biological limitations. In our present form we may receive results that we simply can't understand.

Again, 50 years tops and we'll be making ourselves into whatever we wish. Race, ability, attractiveness, etc. will all be controllable and changeable. Biology isn't a limitation when you have technology. Granted, it's possible that no physical entity can understand the universe, but then you're back to God's territory. I'm confident that it is understandable and calculable though, it's shown itself thus far to be anyway. I mean, if we can nail down Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (which he did in 1927) and make that shit calculable, we can probably get the rest of it so long as the properties inherent in the universe are native to this one. To caveat, they may not be, there are theories that gravity is 'leaking' into our universe from a parallel universe, or that the energy of the newly-discovered Higgs boson suggests non-symmetry, which might mean that the answer to our questions lay outside the universe. In that case, all bets could be off. But I suspect we'll get a handle on it one day.

The question is, I suppose, are evolved tree-monkeys capable of understanding the entirety of the Cosmos, even if every last piece of information... from physics to 'god' to the very fabric of being... even if every last detail were revealed and explained to us?

Depends on how you appraise the human race. While you see evolved tree-monkeys, I see the most capable advanced species nature has ever produced, so far as we yet know ... one that still can't be technologically duplicated. We've explained Relativity and Quantum Theory years ahead of when we should have and we're even capable of upgrading ourselves with technology. Never underestimate a species that can take control of its own evolution and make itself better. We're already to that point and it's only going to accelerate from here on out.

The frightening thing is that it may take an 'IQ', if that can be used as a frame of reference, of four or five digits to even begin to understand the Cosmos in its entirety.  And if that's the case then even the smartest guys on the planet, from Hawking to Hirata, are essentially about as smart as Honey Boo Boo or the cast of Jersey Shore combined.

Build such an IQ or augment yourself to have such an IQ using genetics and tech if we prove to be insufficient. So far, we haven't proven insufficient given that our understanding of the universe has demonstrably grown over our history.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

It's interesting that people still say this. Politics is actually the greatest source of misery, suffering and injustice in the recorded history of mankind. Religion plays second fiddle and only gets violent and damaging when it becomes political.

Now you're getting into a "guns don't kill people, people kill people" argument.  Yes, I understand that it's a continuum between pure ideology and pure expression of power, and difficult to know where one begins and the other ends in any one particular case.  You could abstract it even further and say it's human nature that's the cause.  What distinguishes religion is that it has unassailable authority baked in as an essential element.  Politics is always something that is subject to debate; religious doctrine is not.  It's anti-social and regressive, unless you have a hankering to return to the good old days of absolute monarchy.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

How can our limited minds and experience possibly say for certain without real hubris that there either is or is not something so completely outside our limited intelligence and experience?

The question posed in the title makes it pretty clear that the subject is an Abrahamic GOD, and not whether there is a "higher power" (or however you want to describe it) pulling levers behind a curtain.  There's certainly nothing wrong with extending the topic into that space, but at least in my case that's why the discussion hasn't ranged there.  I'm not sure how such a discussion could be productive in any case, since as you point out the only thing one can properly say about it is, "Maybe.  Who knows?"

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

I`m grilling up some portobello burgers

This is one of my favorite recipes.  Even when I don't get it quite right it has never failed me.

Portobello Burgers with Roasted Onions
(Serves 2)

You will need:
2 large portobello mushrooms
1/3 cup (79 ml) balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
A quarter of red onion, sliced into circles
Burger toppings and buns

Directions:
1. Carefully trim off the stems at the base of the mushrooms. Discard the stems or use them elsewhere, leaving only the caps. Carefully rinse the caps under a trickle of water, gently rubbing off any dirt with your fingers so as not to rub off the skin.

2. In a measuring cup, combine balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper and paprika. Pour a bit of the marinade over the gills of the mushrooms. Place the mushrooms gill side down together with the onion slices in a flat-bottomed dish and pour the rest of the marinade over them. Cover and refrigerate for 40 minutes to 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 400ºF/205ºC. Line a baking sheet with foil and grease with a bit of olive oil. Place the mushrooms, gill side down, along with the onions on the baking sheet and cover with foil loosely. Bake, 30-40 minutes, until the mushrooms are tender. Serve on buns with the onions, along with your preferred burger toppings.

There's my god, right there.

[Kelt]

This is all dependent upon the human race having the capability, now or in the future, to create a situation whereby we can achieve a genuine and full 'understanding'.  That simply may never be possible.

The gradual, latterly rapid, development of the human race from a technological point of view, while impressive, is no real grounds to believe we will always develop at such a pace, or if there are limitations to the degree to which we might develop. If there are biological and technological limitations to human evolution and manufacturing then that puts the brakes on any idea of complete and full understanding of, for want of a better term, Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Now I'm a technophile, which means I love technology rather than an admission that I have sex with underage computers, and I have confidence that for the foreseeable future we will continue to advance at at an ever-increasing rate, particularly as we can delegate more and more problems to computers and whatever follows on from there.  What I can't be sure about, however.. and I don't think anyone can be sure about...  is the likelyhood that at some point we're going to encounter a degree of diminishing return.

By that time we may have colonised z8_GND_5296, have rebuilt our bodies to withstand the direct heat and gravity of a pulsar, and be sending tourists back in time to see the birth of jesus christ himself, assuming he ever existed even though we've established he may not have, probably didn't and for sure definitely never did.... however, that STILL might not be even .0001% of the way towards understanding the scope and complexity of the universe in which we live.

We may never, in that case, achieve the capability required to create a supercomputer that can comprehend the full extent and mechanisms behind our universe.  Possibly in three or four dimensional space we could, since that's what our biology has evolved to understand, but beyond that there's simply no way of knowing if we could even understand true multidimensional space where our physics and perceptions would be completely alien.  Even now there are simple ancient texts that we have no way of understanding, and these were written by human beings more primitive than ourselves, in three dimensional space.  Will we be able to translate them? Possibly, but for all our genius we haven't done it yet.

Extrapolate those limitations, even taking advances into consideration, and place them in a realm where our own physical concepts of time and space have absolutely no meaning whatsoever, even as we evolve and advance technologically, there's no guarantee that we'll ever be able to understand, perceive, or manipulate any kind of readable data.

Can we master three dimensional space?  Probably, given enough time and resources. We could become a type X ciivilisation, that can use our universe as a fluffy fucktoy. Kids can have pet Red Dwarfs, we could vacation on the event horizon of a black hole, but these all exist inside our own three or four dimensions of space and time.  Even the most exotic of physics still, more or less, make some kind of sense.

As for the simulation, as you say it's a rudimentary approximation of a tiny portion of what might constitute the three dimensional universe if the universe were a closed system containing the limited number of parameters with which our coding can impart... it's a little like having a 2 year old draw a picture of hyperdimentional space in 11 or more dimensions and saying, yeah, that's kind of an approximation, though the drool in the left hand corner probably represents nothing.

It's an interesting experiment, but to call it limited would be something of an understatement.

I would have to say that your estimate of a half century before we're altering our genetics to any significant degree is probably quite a way off.  We may be transplanting printed hearts, or lab-grown penises, but "altering ourselves into anything we wish" I would say is wishful thinking.  If I wanted to be a ten-eyed supermutant with functioning wings and a sweet prehensile tail for swinging on branches then I'm going to guess at considerably longer than 50 years before I can get the required surgery that allows my dreams to come true in that respect.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

Now I'm a technophile, which means I love Asian chix with giant hogans

Right ON, brah (*fistbump*)  Consider this: people in the mainstream have been trying to solve the machine translation problem since the IBM XT.  No one can figure it out.  Conventional wisdom is that someday in the future there will be a computer that is powerful enough to mimic the human brain, and then comes a solution.  But what if there isn't?  What if there is something fundamental about the human mind that is an impenetrable barrier to artificial intelligence?

Could you call that the "soul"? 

[GeorgieForPresident2216]

My cat's breath smells like cat food.

[area51drone]

I'm not an angry atheist.  I might have been at one point because my parents rammed jesus down my throat for years.  But I'm over that.  If I'm angry at anything, it's FTF's failure to respond to my questions on the bible, or even to define what he means when he says there's plenty of evidence.   Christians talk themselves into circles.   

[Kelt]

Right ON, brah (*fistbump*)  Consider this: people in the mainstream have been trying to solve the machine translation problem since the IBM XT.  No one can figure it out.  Conventional wisdom is that someday in the future there will be a computer that is powerful enough to mimic the human brain, and then comes a solution.  But what if there isn't?  What if there is something fundamental about the human mind that is an impenetrable barrier to artificial intelligence?

Could you call that the "soul"?

I very much love the Asians with the breasts of unusual proportions.  If there IS an observable sign of the existence of god then it's big-tittied Japanese femmes dressed as, say, nurses.  And if the Bible was mostly about Mammtastic Japanese babes fighting tentacle monsters in abandoned warehouses then I'd be as rabid a Christian as you would find this side of Pat Robertson's public persona.  I'd even hate gays and trannies, just like the Bible tells us to.  Westboro Baptist Church would be calling me a religious nut.

As for a soul, I remember reading, or hearing, that one sure sign of conscious life is when something shows awareness of its own existence and will take steps to maintain that existence;

I may have heard it on Star Trek. 

Regardless, it seems to me that in the absence of a 'soul', because I'm an atheist and will entertain no supernatural nonsense, life will, uuuh uuuhhh, find a way.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

Regardless, it seems to me that in the absence of a 'soul', because I'm an atheist and will entertain no supernatural nonsense, life will, uuuh uuuhhh, find a way.

Does it change anything if you take out the requirement that a soul be eternal (which I think would violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics)?  What if it expired when life does?  Or would that just make it "life"?

[Kelt]

There's the thing, though.

Since the 'soul' is a hypothetical, never measured or observed, piece of supernatural nonsense... we can give the 'soul' whatever crazy, impossible attributes we like,  We can even go so far as to say that the 'soul' both does and doesn't violate the second law of thermodynamics, depending upon whichever state best suits our argument at any given time.

That's the beauty of the supernatural, gods, ghosts, goblins, and ghoulies, since they don't actually exist you can give them whatever physics-defying superpowers you want and people can't say shit because they "don't understand the nature of god" (the nature I just made up and can change to suit myself at any given time for any given situation).

It's brilliant, really.

[FightTheFuture]

This is one of my favorite recipes.  Even when I don't get it quite right it has never failed me.

Portobello Burgers with Roasted Onions
(Serves 2)

You will need:
2 large portobello mushrooms
1/3 cup (79 ml) balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/8 tsp paprika
A quarter of red onion, sliced into circles
Burger toppings and buns

Directions:
1. Carefully trim off the stems at the base of the mushrooms. Discard the stems or use them elsewhere, leaving only the caps. Carefully rinse the caps under a trickle of water, gently rubbing off any dirt with your fingers so as not to rub off the skin.

2. In a measuring cup, combine balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper and paprika. Pour a bit of the marinade over the gills of the mushrooms. Place the mushrooms gill side down together with the onion slices in a flat-bottomed dish and pour the rest of the marinade over them. Cover and refrigerate for 40 minutes to 1 hour.

3. Preheat the oven to 400ºF/205ºC. Line a baking sheet with foil and grease with a bit of olive oil. Place the mushrooms, gill side down, along with the onions on the baking sheet and cover with foil loosely. Bake, 30-40 minutes, until the mushrooms are tender. Serve on buns with the onions, along with your preferred burger toppings.

There's my god, right there.

That looks to be absolutely divine! I shall give it a whirl and let you know how it turned out. Thank you!

[FightTheFuture]

I'm not an angry atheist.  I might have been at one point because my parents rammed jesus down my throat for years.  But I'm over that.  If I'm angry at anything, it's FTF's failure to respond to my questions on the bible, or even to define what he means when he says there's plenty of evidence.   Christians talk themselves into circles.

Yeah, I think you have a huge chip on your shoulder. And, frankly, I don`t feel the need to be interrogated on my beliefs, although I have, in the past, delved into them from time to time. The fact is, this particular forum is not a venue where civil conversation on this subject will ever take place. I think we`ve all witnessed that, haven`t we?

As far as arguing a case for Christianity, i.e., presenting evidence, etc. there`s no shortage of available literature to keep you busy for years. If you want it nicely boiled down and researched, you might start with Dr. Gary Habermas, who lays out a very concise and extremely compelling argument for the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

[zeebo]

I get frustrated with the entanglement of ethics and religion.  Fervent religious folk often effect a kind of smug superiority that they have higher morals, and that the rest of us must be morally corrupt in our godlessness.  As if their particular organized religion is the only one true way towards ethical development.  How about learning from philosophy, and from reading history and literature, and from our parents, and through interaction with other people, and from self-reflection? 

And in any case don't we all already have an inate ethical core anyway?  I mean do you need some religious tome to tell you that it's wrong to lie, cheat, steal, or commit acts of violence towards the innocent?  What if your texts told you it was ok?  Would you then go do these things?  (There are some questionable instructions in the bible btw - and they're largely ignored.)

I think it's Richard Dawkins that points out how most religious people simply cherry-pick the parts from religion that they already agree with.  In other words they already have an internal ethical compass that does not come from some edict on high, such that they tend to focus only on those parts of any scripture that already appeals to them.  This is also why there's so many variants of Christianity.  Why would you need so many different denominations if everyone just believed rote what it says in plain text of the bible?  In any case, people just pick the elements that already resonate with what they feel is right, which obviates the need for any scriptures in the first place. 

And one must ask, how ethical is it to do good works, when you're doing it for ultimately self-serving reasons - to gain favor in your church, to impress some god with your devotion, to score a place in heaven.  As I read somewhere ... There's nothing more noble than a compassionate athiest.  They have nothing to gain for themselves in some future life, only the hopes of improving this world, right here, right now.

[Catsmile]

Yeah, I think you have a huge chip on your shoulder. And, frankly, I don`t feel the need to be interrogated on my beliefs, although I have, in the past, delved into them from time to time. The fact is, this particular forum is not a venue where civil conversation on this subject will ever take place. I think we`ve all witnessed that, haven`t we?

As far as arguing a case for Christianity, i.e., presenting evidence, etc. there`s no shortage of available literature to keep you busy for years. If you want it nicely boiled down and researched, you might start with Dr. Gary Habermas, who lays out a very concise and extremely compelling argument for the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus.

Dr. Gary Habermas

Dr. Gary Habermas is Distinguished Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy and chairman of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University.

Liberty University

The university was founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971 by Jerry Falwell, who was also Senior Pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church. The name was changed to Liberty Baptist College in 1976 before settling on its current name, Liberty University, in 1984, when it obtained university status.

Liberty University teaches young Earth creationism as an explanation for the appearance of life on earth. The university works with young Earth creationist organizations including Answers in Genesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Habermas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_University
 

Yeah... umm... no. Sigh...

[area51drone]

Well said Zeebo.  I love reading your posts.

[area51drone]

this particular forum is not a venue where civil conversation on this subject will ever take place. I think we`ve all witnessed that, haven`t we?

It shouldn't matter to you if you really believe.   You should relish in trying to defend your beliefs in the worst  situations.  Consider yourself Daniel in the Lion's den..... go.

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

... There's nothing more noble than a compassionate athiest. 

Yeah...you know what else?  We've never killed anyone in furtherance of our beliefs, either.  That puts us several billion souls ahead of the Abrahamic religions on the morality scale.

[Bart Ell]

[Kelt]

Like Catholic girls rebelling against their parents... any of those 'atheists' who weren'r raised with religious indoctrination?

And did any of them kill based on atheist principles?

[Bart Ell]

[zeebo]

Well said Zeebo...

Thanks man.  Btw I can relate to your frustrations.  I'm currently ticked off that the 24-hr evangelist radio station here has recently upgraded their transmitter.  Now their non-stop sermons and calls for donation and truly awful music bleeds into my c2c station. 

I've heard this stuff my whole life.  I learned about it school.  It's blaring all day long on tv and radio.  It's ingrained in our politics.  People stop me on the street, or hold up signs at public events, or even come to my house and knock on my door - all trying so desperately to convince me they're right.  I just wanna know why it's so important to all these people that I believe the same things they do?  Who are they trying to convince?

I think I'm a decent person.  I'm no saint, but I do try to be fair and compassionate and even occasionally generous.  I don't use people.  I don't rip people off.  I crack jokes with the checker at my grocery store to help her day go a little easier.  And I'm nice to cats. 

So to all the evangelists - enough already, just leave me out of it please. 

[Bart Ell]

Now their non-stop sermons and calls for donation and truly awful music bleeds into my c2c station. 

You are not helping your argument...

[DigitalPigSnuggler]

About as logical as any other argument in favor of Christian moral superiority.

[West of the Rockies]

I am no biblical scholar, but I do have a question:  when people say "many people saw Christ walk after he was resurrected", how do we truly know that to be true?  Isn't the proof really just a few disciples claiming that many saw the deceased/reanimated Christ walk?  Since they were utterly invested in their belief, can we trust their words to be true?

I am not trying to be a "gotcha" asshole here.  I ask these questions in agnostic earnestness.

[West of the Rockies]

I like [Jesus] very much, but he no help with curveball....

[Harmness]

Bob Dobbs, people.  You can't beat the triple your money back guarantee.

[steelbot]

Trailer Park Boys - Ricky, Ray, and Bubbles Talk About Santa

OMG the new season is on Netflix and so fucking funny - the best one yet!!

[zeebo]

...I ask these questions in agnostic earnestness.

Well-intentioned as they may be, questions like this will still get you kicked out of Sunday School.

Btw, everyone's heard of the omnipotence-challenging paradox "Can God make a boulder so heavy He can't lift it?"  Somewhere I heard a funny variation:  "Can God microwave a burrito so hot He can't eat it?"

[West of the Rockies]

And can he handle molten pizza rolls?