Is nihilism the logical extreme of atheism?

[Mystical]

Sorry this is a day late..

The point you mention here, concerns the ability of any creator to create something superior to itself. So far, humans haven't created better humans.

Introducing: Designer babies



Advanced reproductive technologies allow parents and doctors to screen embryos for genetic disorders and select healthy embryos

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Advanced reproductive techniques involve using InVitro Fertilisation or IVF to fertilise eggs with sperm in 'test-tubes' outside the mother's body in a laboratory. These techniques allow doctors and parents to reduce the chance that a child will be born with a genetic disorder. At the moment it is only legally possible to carry out two types of advanced reproductive technologies on humans. The first involves choosing the type of sperm that will fertilise an egg: this is used to determine the sex and the genes of the baby. The second technique screens embryos for a genetic disease: only selected embryos are implanted back into the mother's womb. This is called Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD).

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[Mystical]

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I didn't just repeat them gen. I put them in my own words, and then did that afresh a few times just to try to help you guys understand it. You're still trying to misrepresent my original statement. Let me try one more time.

Reality one: unfair
Reality two: fair

Person living reality one: his decisions/ moral values are based upon the scope of reality as he knows and experiences it. If he knows a murderer will never get punished, justice to him could only come from equal suffering dealt to the perpetrator.

Person in reality two, has no concern about exacting revenge, because he knows justice to be enacted. He feels no need to punish over and above what might be fair to compensate for any lack of justice.

Therefore moral standards from the two perfective are different. The moral standard of the person in reality one is inferior to the standard of the person in reality two. Because person one acts given injustice.

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Morality restricted by injustice is a limited morality.
Morality unrestricted is not limited.
Therefore morality based upon a fair reality is superior to morality based upon an unfair reality.

Why must there be justice?
To make you feel better about what happened??

If someone killed my family member, its a moot point, really, what happens next. They're dead.

Why do you think revenge in kind-- earthly or supernaturally-- is 'moral' , at all?
I mean, I can see how believing the murderer will 'get his in the end' could soothe your feelings on the matter, but at what cost?
You want all the other non murderers like me who simply don't believe in the afterlife: to suffer eternally as well?

.. Because, that's what your bible says.

We had a whole thread discussion about it, and concluded that you couldn't account for why you believe what you believe about hell, because you have no reason other than your subjective feelings on the matter, to not believe the god of the bible when he said nonbelievers are going to eternal hell.

Therefore morality based upon a fair reality is superior to morality based upon an unfair reality.

Being that there is no fair reality whatsoever (killing my brother then me killing or punishing you in this life or the next-- does not bring back my brother), how can you say your reality is superior when the price paid for your fairness, is eternal torture for the majority of your brethren?

Injustice= Reality
(get over it)

[fr0d0]

Losty... humans don't create humans with chemicals not possible to create from themselves. At best all they can do is create copies of themselves. I think you're arguing with someone off point here.

The nylon eating bacteria might be s new species, but it's not something that the universe didn't already contain the information to spawn, do you see?

The singularity is a theory. I understand that. Did you think I was insisting on it? You would be mistaken then.

Justice. There doesn't _have_ to be justice. Things just work out differently if there were. How? My perspective is different > my moral understanding is different > my quality of life is different.

Revenge is always immoral for humans IMO. Why? Because we don't have sufficient knowledge to condemn.

I don't want you to suffer in an afterlife. You do in my dogma. Let me say it in a secular way: Do you want to live life in a way that benefits your nature and puts you in harmony with the world, or do you want to be selfish and live in disharmony with nature and suffer mentally and physically as a natural consequence of that? <---- that's all Christianity is saying. If you say that you want to live a full and happy life, then that's the same as a Christian saying that they want to believe in God. Jesus: "I came to give you life in all its fullness".

Injustice = reality for you. That's sad.

[genkaus]

Losty... humans don't create humans with chemicals not possible to create from themselves. At best all they can do is create copies of themselves. I think you're arguing with someone off point here.

Create *better* copies - which was the point.

The nylon eating bacteria might be s new species, but it's not something that the universe didn't already contain the information to spawn, do you see?

Really? What else does the universe already contain information for?

Justice. There doesn't _have_ to be justice. Things just work out differently if there were. How? My perspective is different > my moral understanding is different > my quality of life is different.

2 things - Is your moral understanding consistent with your perspective and is the quality of life superior?

Revenge is always immoral for humans IMO. Why? Because we don't have sufficient knowledge to condemn.

How much is sufficient knowledge and why is it impossible for humans to have it?

I don't want you to suffer in an afterlife. You do in my dogma. Let me say it in a secular way: Do you want to live life in a way that benefits your nature and puts you in harmony with the world, or do you want to be selfish and live in disharmony with nature and suffer mentally and physically as a natural consequence of that? <---- that's all Christianity is saying. If you say that you want to live a full and happy life, then that's the same as a Christian saying that they want to believe in God. Jesus: "I came to give you life in all its fullness".

Like the proposition you presented here, Christianity is based on false dichotomy. Suffering mentally and physically is nit a natural consequence of being selfish or living in disharmony with nature. The same goes for Christianity - it is lying when it says that you need Jesus to live life at its fullness.

Injustice = reality for you. That's sad.

~Sad, but True.~

[bennyboy]

Which would explain why the entire universe rotates in numerically dominant counter clockwise direction, and how the temperatures of the universe is stabilized in such few years after its' creation.

I don't undertand this.

How can rotation be said to have a direction, if there's no point established as "up"?

[Chas]

The point you mention here, concerns the ability of any creator to create something superior to itself. So far, humans haven't created better humans. Taking it back to a primary level, a substance cannot create something not contained in the source. The singularity had to contain all of the information necessary to form everything in the universe. It isn't possible for the universe to create anything that it doesn't already have the physical information to create.

The level of wrongness contained in your statements show your utter lack of understanding of what information is. Information is created all the time, order emerges from chaos.

And what, exactly, is "physical information"?

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The nylon eating bacteria might be s new species, but it's not something that the universe didn't already contain the information to spawn, do you see?

Where, exactly, was this pre-existing information?

[fr0d0]

Losty... humans don't create humans with chemicals not possible to create from themselves. At best all they can do is create copies of themselves. I think you're arguing with someone off point here.

Create *better* copies - which was the point.

lol it's still physically impossible to create something more than you physically compose. Variations leading to perfection have to be less or equal to the creator.

The nylon eating bacteria might be s new species, but it's not something that the universe didn't already contain the information to spawn, do you see?

Really? What else does the universe already contain information for?

Everything in it, and anything it has the potential to create. The singularity contained the potential for the entire possible content of the universe. It was potentiality.

Justice. There doesn't _have_ to be justice. Things just work out differently if there were. How? My perspective is different > my moral understanding is different > my quality of life is different.

2 things - Is your moral understanding consistent with your perspective and is the quality of life superior?

With both we're talking potential. You're moving away from philosophy to practical application, which doesn't help crystalise the idea for you, but confuses it.

Revenge is always immoral for humans IMO. Why? Because we don't have sufficient knowledge to condemn.

How much is sufficient knowledge and why is it impossible for humans to have it?

If humans had it, how would they know? If they can't know that they have it, then they can't know that their judgments are correct.

I don't want you to suffer in an afterlife. You do in my dogma. Let me say it in a secular way: Do you want to live life in a way that benefits your nature and puts you in harmony with the world, or do you want to be selfish and live in disharmony with nature and suffer mentally and physically as a natural consequence of that? <---- that's all Christianity is saying. If you say that you want to live a full and happy life, then that's the same as a Christian saying that they want to believe in God. Jesus: "I came to give you life in all its fullness".

Like the proposition you presented here, Christianity is based on false dichotomy. Suffering mentally and physically is nit a natural consequence of being selfish or living in disharmony with nature. The same goes for Christianity - it is lying when it says that you need Jesus to live life at its fullness.

Suffering mentally and physically are a direct result of living in conflict with nature. Don't take your meds: expect the illness to continue.

For the rest, like I've said, in a faithless reality life is unfair.

Injustice = reality for you. That's sad.

~Sad, but True.~

Sans faith. Sure.

[Tonus]

Suffering mentally and physically are a direct result of living in conflict with nature. Don't take your meds: expect the illness to continue.

For the rest, like I've said, in a faithless reality life is unfair.

I think there is some understanding of how the brain works that shows that our subconscious mind operates on something akin to faith. The subconscious mind does not sort out the information it receives, so much as it seems to just accept it all and force us to work with whatever we throw in there. A person who is constantly down on himself and always sees the downside of things is likely to fall short of his potential. The person who expects his life to be successful will achieve far more than others would think he was capable of.

The thing about it is that their initial propositions (if we may call them that) are not true. If pressed, the pessimist would admit that things aren't nearly as bad as he claims, and that the solution to his problems is well within reach. The optimist would likely admit that he is setting goals that seem far out of his reach and depend on factors out of his control. Yet they're both likely to reach the end that they have subconsciously told themselves that they deserve.

In short, we lie to ourselves all the time, and work to make that lie a reality. Not impossible if you are working within reality. But until we can conjure up gods and heavens, the primary benefit of religious belief is comfort and a possible lessening of anxiety. The primary danger is of a life wasted --a life lived waiting for a better future that cannot be dreamed into existence.

[fr0d0]

Where, exactly, was this pre-existing information?

That's the theory of the big bang. It just appeared.

[genkaus]

lol it's still physically impossible to create something more than you physically compose. Variations leading to perfection have to be less or equal to the creator.

A greater degree of perfection does not require greater physical composition - rearrangement of existing material is more than enough. As a matter of fact, I'd say that to create something better, you must use less than what you have. Which is why my laptop is better than the 1950's computer.

Everything in it, and anything it has the potential to create. The singularity contained the potential for the entire possible content of the universe. It was potentiality.

Potentiality is not information. I have the potential to solve the mysteries of quantum physic, that doesn't mean I already have the information required to do so.

With both we're talking potential. You're moving away from philosophy to practical application, which doesn't help crystalise the idea for you, but confuses it.

Its the opposite, actually. Ivory-tower philosophy with no practical application is meaningless. The practical application of an idea is what crystalizes it.

If humans had it, how would they know? If they can't know that they have it, then they can't know that their judgments are correct.

Don't evade the question. Your ignorance of how humans can have sufficient knowledge and how they can know if they do is not evidence that they can't have sufficient knowledge. Once again, argument from ignorance doesn't justify shifting the burden of proof.

Suffering mentally and physically are a direct result of living in conflict with nature. Don't take your meds: expect the illness to continue.

Humans have been living in conflict with nature for centuries now, without suffering mentally or physically.

For the rest, like I've said, in a faithless reality life is unfair.

An we bring fairness to it - thus making a fuller life than one with faith.

Sans faith. Sure.

Your faith doesn't change reality - merely your perception of it. Reality would be just or unjust regardless of your belief in it. Now, if you have some actual evidence to show a just reality, put it forward.