Atheist struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself

[brewer]

like i said, I guess i used the ant as lack of a better analogy, you could replace the ant with viruses or germs as they are alive.

I'm pretty sure ants are not aware of your LIFE experiences like going to work, driving cars, relationships, they may see us as a presence.

What makes you think that a virus or bacteria can't perceive it's environment? There is evidence that they can, just not in the same way as you and I. 

Show me a god (within the theist/deist definition) that I can perceive/experience. It does not matter if we share the exact same perceptions or experiences.

[Harry Nevis]

Man why you gotta look down on ants? They're smart. They have mind blowing team work skills. They're pretty strong and if you threw one from a skyscraper it would probably be a-okay. They're practically superheroes. We're not gods to them, we're just one more big and annoying threat to the colony.

Another example of the Man trying to keep the Formicidae down.

[brewer]

Man why you gotta look down on ants? They're smart. They have mind blowing team work skills. They're pretty strong and if you threw one from a skyscraper it would probably be a-okay. They're practically superheroes. We're not gods to them, we're just one more big and annoying threat to the colony.

Another example of the Man trying to keep the Formicidae down.

He may be one of these:



Or these:

[The Grand Nudger]

No i'm not proposing a god or aliens for one minute.

So, not an entity at all then (I've left out human beings because I thought that you were obviously not wondering whether or not there were people watching you, unbeknownst to you).  We're left with "a force".  I'm not really sure that it makes much sense to talk about a force watching you. if the question then becomes "is it possible that some non-entity force is watching me" then the no-nonsense answer is a hard no. Mostly because the question is forced to choose between nonsense or equivocation.

It's like asking whether or not it's possible that the blind man sees you. No, he doesn;t, it;s not possible..but a person willing to be -very- creative in their use of the terms "blind man" and "see" and "possibility" could probably yap your ear off about it until armageddon.

[Brian37]

Quick answer: yes, there could be such an entity and yes we could be as beneath it as an ant is to us. There might be any number of things beyond our understanding and imagination. But life is short; don't waste time cowering in fear of what might be. Find out if there really are such things, if you like. But pragmatically, withhold believing in them until there's reason to do so. Certainly don't prostrate yourself in worship of them - even if they exist, worship has to be earned.

^This^

For that matter each uber-being above us could each have an uber-being above it ad infinitum.  The fact that an ant defines us as the uber-most, absolute god makes no difference to whether or not there are any.  

In a world of hypothetical uber-beings, no one can say which is the omega.

As I said in a prior post, I am not a fan of even the si fi version of a giant Bill Gates, or infinite number of quantum Steve Jobs "programming" us. It would still suffer the problem of infinite regress the old mythological gods suffer from. 

If that programmer caused it, then what caused that program, and what cased that program ect ect ect ect.

It makes much more sense that cognition in life is a temporary blip and arises and falls, just like you will never have an infinite hurricane. Not even the one on Jupiter was there forever and even it is expected to dissipate.

There is no infinite regress when you accept on and off, up and down, rise and fall. The cycle can be infinite, but there is no infinite regress as long as you are going from a temporary off, to a temporary on, back to a temporary off. Because you don't have to keep explaining an infinite on with a more complex on.

[Cyberman]

We're left with "a force".  I'm not really sure that it makes much sense to talk about a force watching you.

It's the ducks, isn't it:



Those bastards are everywhere.

[The Grand Nudger]

The Tyranny of Ducks.

[Catholic_Lady]

i'm wondering if you can help me im an atheist but am struggling to answer a question i often propose to myself it goes something like this.....

If you see an ant crawling across the ground, to the ant, you are his god that could wipe him out at time, he has no intelligence of you or that you exist, for the ant he is as intelligent as he is going to get, and can't even comprehend we exist.

So could we be in the same position as the ant? as far as we can see humans right now are as intelligent as we can get, but growing up we do not have the intelligence capacity to comprehend our surrounding. As children, take a 1 year old or any age under 3-4 we are also at that point, (The same as the ant) as intelligent at THAT time as we are going to get and cannot comprehend to world around us intelligently.

So just the same as the ant, adults at our height point of intelligence, to the toddler we are the Gods. What if we, right NOW are at this point in time, at our current level of intelligence are in the same position as the Ant and Toddler? Could there be an unknown Force, Entity, that just the same as we are unknown to the ant and the toddler to his or her world, that is looking at us as we look at the ant?

As its happening right now to the ant and toddler, this is proof it can, and is happening, It doesn't seem that extraordinary somthing is looknig at us in the same way,

Would love to hear what you think,

Thanks

This is a thoughtful post. I actually make this exact example fairly often here when discussing things we have no capacity to understand, like God being outside of time, God always having existed, why He allows certain things to happen, etc.

[Shell B]

It may have been said already, but the answer is yes. Of course it is possible that there are greater forces or beings that we cannot or just haven't comprehended. However, these things would not be "gods" as humans have thusfar posited. Most, if not all, religions are demonstrably false. They make claims we can easily disprove. If they claimed they think there might be something smarter than us out there, I wouldn't question it for a second. When they start saying they know it is there and it hates all the same things they hate, I get suspicious.

[Brian37]

It may have been said already, but the answer is yes. Of course it is possible that there are greater forces or beings that we cannot or just haven't comprehended. However, these things would not be "gods" as humans have thusfar posited. Most, if not all, religions are demonstrably false. They make claims we can easily disprove. If they claimed they think there might be something smarter than us out there, I wouldn't question it for a second. When they start saying they know it is there and it hates all the same things they hate, I get suspicious.

I agree but it is also why I say "No". Because when the speculators guess they are gap filling with all sorts of woo and old mythology.

What we don't currently know does not mean we should cling to naked assertions. "Just in case". There is currently lots we do know that we can build off of without clinging to unfounded guesses.

Whatever "bigger forces" or "unknown forces" we might discover in the future will be known then, and will not fall into some super natural once we have a natural explanation.

The gaps keep getting smaller and smaller the more natural science discovers the real answers.

For the same reason humans once only dreamed of flying like birds, we didn't simply guess or wish, we discovered and invented through observation which is why we have modern jets now.

I still see nothing but a natural future regardless of what we don't know now. It will simply be understood.