What is a god?

[lukec]

I am sorry to hear that, and I hope that in time you will come to view life differently, in realizing that this life is all we have makes it all the more beautiful and amazing. To think that we are even alive is just awe-inspiring to me, that life exists, and that we have the capacity to think and feel, to connect with other thinking, feeling beings. I don't know, I'm still learning, but it's in learning that we grow, and if there is some pain in that then surely it will only help us grow more.

[CoxRox]

I will continue to hope this is not all there is. I can't see any harm in that. I'm ok now. Life still goes on. Thanks

[LukeMC]

I'm sorry if this debate has caused you any emotional problems

But heck, when you die you'll be back where you were in 1837, in 1700, in 4000BC. You weren't complaining then, and you obviously have no memory of it being bad. You might enjoy it

Nobody really wants to die (suicidal citizens are not taken into account in this statement). It's a tough concept to deal with. If a fairytale land comforts you, that is fine. If belief in an illogical father-figure in the sky comforts you, that is fine. If the flying spaghetti monster comforts you, that is also fine. That is personal to you, and we shouldn't try to strip you of it. It only stops being fine when you push it onto others as being truth, which I assume you wouldn't do. I find the story of the universe to be marvellous, far greater than any god story. I'm glad that I even had the chance to live. Trillions upon trillions of quarks and electrons forming atoms whilst being blasted out into the far reaches of space, clustering together into astronomical structures, falling under their own gravity, igniting, throwing off tonnes of heavy elements which formed large solid spheres and under incredible circumstances lead to combinations of atoms which could self-replicate and were subject to evolution for billions of years until what we have now- the tiny, fundemental "stuff" of the universe arranged in such a way that it is able to look back at the rest of the "stuff" and think "this is beautiful. This is me."

Emotional moment for me right there

[Darwinian]

I will continue to hope this is not all there is. I can't see any harm in that. I'm ok now. Life still goes on. Thanks

I know many physicists that believe that consciousness is distinct from the brain and that once a persons body dies the 'person' somehow carries on existing.

They are all atheist in that they don't believe in a god but the more they look into the strange world of quantum mechanics the more they see these counter intuitive possibilities.

Personally, I have no problem with the concept of the brain hosting the mind rather than creating it and consider consciousness itself to be an integral part of reality.

The problem arises because somehow, religion seems to have the monopoly on the 'afterlife' and once you reject religion you must also reject this.

The more I look into the way reality seems to be working the more I realise that this logical and ordered universe we live in is simply a strange side effect of the real cosmos full of weird, counter intuitive possibilities that depend upon your own perspective and conscious interaction.

[allan175]

I will continue to hope this is not all there is. I can't see any harm in that. I'm ok now. Life still goes on. Thanks

I hope this is not all there is too, I'm just not expecting anything else.

[lukec]

What's wrong with only having this?

[allan175]

What's wrong with only having this?

Nothing wrong with only having this, but if when I die there is more then great! I don't think there will be though.

[CoxRox]

Darwinian, your post was very interesting indeed:

''I know many physicists that believe that consciousness is distinct from the brain and that once a persons body dies the 'person' somehow carries on existing.

They are all atheist in that they don't believe in a god but the more they look into the strange world of quantum mechanics the more they see these counter intuitive possibilities.''

Do they base this on any research? And if this is possible, maybe there is this 'other mind' out there. You know who I mean........

Allan, I am an optimist and I'll always hope there is more than this too. I'm greedy....

[josef rosenkranz]

Darwinian, your post was very interesting indeed:

''I know many physicists that believe that consciousness is distinct from the brain and that once a persons body dies the 'person' somehow carries on existing.

They are all atheist in that they don't believe in a god but the more they look into the strange world of quantum mechanics the more they see these counter intuitive possibilities.''

Do they base this on any research? And if this is possible, maybe there is this 'other mind' out there. You know who I mean........

Allan, I am an optimist and I'll always hope there is more than this too. I'm greedy....

Hi CoxRox
The problem of Physicists who believe in a sort of life "existing" after death should first of all define the notion of existing.
If they mean that a dead person continues to live in the memory of other persons than they are sort of "right".
Only that the memory is a manifestation of the living person without any proved physical influence from the side of the dead.
Religious people who believe in life after death believe in the immortal soul which has nothing to do with atheism.
Now the problem of "counter intuitive possibilities " in the world of quantum mechanics is not new and began with the uncertainity principle postulated by Bohr /Heisenberg and never recognized as such by Einstein.
Stephen Hawking has used it in his physics of black holes,and has even hinted that uncertainity could be a universal principle.
I don't know where the indeterminism which is the base of the uncertainity principle stucks.
If someone of this forum knows more about indeterminism please come foreward and enlighten us.

[leo-rcc]

Determinism and indeterminism are both concepts that divide both theists and atheists alike. Really, Ive been listening to hours worth of debates back and forth, to and fro, and nothing is even slightly conclusive.

Dan Dennett tried to make his point on determinism clear with the use of a digger wasp. This insect follows a series of genetically programmed steps in preparing for egg laying. If an experimenter interrupts one of these steps the wasp will repeat that step again. For an animal like a wasp, this process of repeating the same behavior can go on indefinitely, the wasp never seeming to notice what is going on. This is the type of mindless, pre-determined behavior is what people can avoid. Humans therefore are less mechanical in thinking than wasps, and show something that might be interpreted as free will.

The deeper philosophical issue of free will can be framed as a paradox. On one hand, we all feel like we have free will, a multitude of behavioral choices to select among. On the other hand, modern biology describes humans as mechanisms that follow all of the same deterministic rules as wasps or inanimate objects. How do we reconcile our feeling of Free Will with the idea that we are mechanical components of a mechanical universe?

Dennett gives his definition of determinism on page one of his book "The Elbow room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting": all physical events are caused or determined by the sum total of all previous events. This definition dodges a question that many people feel should not be dodged: if we repeatedly replayed the universe from the same point in time would it always reach the same future?

There is something like an infinite regress in the lines of determinsm and indeterminism tries to break that regress. Some pose that you have a choice up to an extent but in the bigger picture you will always follow a certain path. Indeterminism states that some events have no cause to begin with and therefore no set endpath. something is either caused or uncaused, with predictable or unpredictable actions and reactions that follow.

This stuff is enough to give people serious headaches.

I know of atheists that do not adhere to the notion of determinism, and some that do. I find the concept interesting but there is nothing really I can honestly say I think of the matter, both have valid points.