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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 12:58 am
(September 3, 2011 at 8:47 pm)Fred Wrote: I just signed up and am looking to have a serious discussion re atheism. I'm not an atheist, but I'm not a fundie, either and am not looking for the usual foodfight stuff. My position is an odd one. I can see the exit from here, if you will, and all things considered, I'd be happy if materialistic atheism were true, but I just can't make sense of it on many levels, as it seems as faith-based as anything else.
I would like discuss it from the ground up, meaning no assumptions about where I am coming from or assuming where I'm going. I will also not assume. I'm not interested in dogma on either side, but there are questions I can't seem to get answered.
In a weird way, this is akin to a deathbed de-conversion opportunity, so if anyone wants to engage in an intelligent fasion, I'd love that.
Wow. Start a thread Fred, I wanna know what you're thinking!
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11:6
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 1:04 am
(September 4, 2011 at 12:58 am)salty Wrote: Wow. Start a thread Fred, I wanna know what you're thinking!
Ummm...the last 6 pages salty??? How's the hangover?
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 1:32 am
(This post was last modified: September 4, 2011 at 1:38 am by salty.)
(September 4, 2011 at 1:04 am)KichigaiNeko Wrote: (September 4, 2011 at 12:58 am)salty Wrote: Wow. Start a thread Fred, I wanna know what you're thinking!
Ummm...the last 6 pages salty??? How's the hangover?
But they didn't finish...there has to be another room where he can post.
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11:6
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 1:37 am
(September 4, 2011 at 1:32 am)salty Wrote:
But they didn't finish. I guess I could jump around and look for Fred.
patience young padawan....
@ mods....
query- often threads turn into a one on one debate. I thought we had an area for this. Conversely I can understand how a discussion can turn into a debate between two individuals. While I am yet to look into the 'Rules' I am happy for debates to be on the open forum. 
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 1:41 am
Yeah, this is definitely something to watch. I'm excited to see how it all unfolds.
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Hebrews 11:6
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 1:45 am
(September 4, 2011 at 1:41 am)salty Wrote: Yeah, this is definitely something to watch. I'm excited to see how it all unfolds.
I can not share your "excitement" but I am curious. Rhythm has such a broad depth of knowledge, at the moment I am suspecting Fred has a very weak argument...somehow evades direct questions...meh could be just me 
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 2:06 am
The guy spends a Saturday night in a cafe talking about this shit instead of trying to get laid?
Religion will really fuck you up.
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 2:12 am
(September 4, 2011 at 2:06 am)Minimalist Wrote: The guy spends a Saturday night in a cafe talking about this shit instead of trying to get laid?
Religion will really fuck you up.
So it would appear Min. Sunday morning here. Bit sus regarding the whole "the truth of the godhead- as 'observed' by Quote:the folks who have observed are the folks following the esoteric systems I mentioned in my last post, the yogis, sufis, the zen folk, the Christian mystics, kabbalahist, et. al.
:thinking... hmmmm
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 10:31 am
(This post was last modified: September 4, 2011 at 10:43 am by Fred.)
(September 4, 2011 at 2:06 am)Minimalist Wrote: The guy spends a Saturday night in a cafe talking about this shit instead of trying to get laid?
Religion will really fuck you up.
Heh. Ain't it tragic? Waiting to die is kinda like that. Only worse. So it goes, huh?
(September 4, 2011 at 12:08 am)Rhythm Wrote: What about Brahman? The Upanishads postulate Brahman as an "everything" answer, which is precisely why it is a "nothing" answer. The people who put forward these theories (and that's what they were) were deeply and profoundly ignorant of the world around them by any standard of today. Even within Hinduism atheism is one of the oldest schools of thought. Nastikas and Cavarka. Actually, (and I just wrote something about this..lol) a Hindu "brahmin" is the first person in history on record as an atheist. Brahman is an ambiguous word isn't it, it either means the ultimate spirit, or a priest (rendered as brahmin). It's amusing, because Cavarka thought the "divinity" and "priests" were one in the same, IE, that it was a load of shit designed to feed priests.
Hinduism FTW!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charvaka
(check out those "core beliefs")
I'm not clear what you mean by an "everything" answer, so maybe you could elaborate. As to Brahmin and Brahman being the same, that hasn't been my understanding of it, but I'm not a linguist, so I don't know.
The notion that the rishis were profoundly ignorant about the world around them is akin to the "they were just a bunch of stupid goatherders" line tossed out so often, but there ya go. Anyone who can read Indian philosophy and proclaim those folks ignorant of the world around them has a different yardstick than I do, so it should be interesting to see how you might back that one up. Anyway, it's time to move this discussion out of the intro section, so I will start a thread elsewhere and we can continue there if you wish.
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RE: Looking for an intelligent, rational discussion re atheism
September 4, 2011 at 11:28 am
(This post was last modified: September 4, 2011 at 12:28 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
The rishis, like most revelatory characters, are in all likelihood mythical. But lets just take a look at their cosmology for a moment to see if they had an inside track. (The seven rishis are in fact Ursa Major, apparently not stars, but holy men.)
Brahmas lifespan is 100 "Brahma years". A "day" to brahma is 4.32 billion years, making his total lifespan 157680 billion years. Apparently the lifespan of creation is 4.32 billion years, after which there is a 4.32 billion year lull before creation begins again.
Few problems right out of the gate. Firstly, we shouldn't see anything older than 4.32 billion years. In fact we could have three vedic creation cycles in the span of time that the cosmos have been in existence. Even stranger, is that later in the text the Brahmas lifespan is said to be 311040 billion years. Fully twice that of the previous estimate (from the same text). This is later swept away by editors as the lull between the death and birth of a new brahma (and yet still missing a couple hundred thousand years).
An "end times" prophecy is also encoded within. All of creation will end sometime in the year 428898 (at which time creation will be destroyed by "fire or water" okay, they couldn't make up their mind but we'll let that slide). I'm not going to be around to falsify that one, but at least they had the balls to put a date on it. Of course why wouldn't they, who was going to say differently?
The cosmos are a giant egg, emanating from a single point called Bindu. So, there we have a fairly common metaphor for the cosmos as an egg (the whole birth/giving thing etc) tied to an early form of reductionism. Credit where credit is do I suppose..these guys did come up with Cavaraka before anyone else so we have to give them brownie points at some point.
They go on to make an "authoritative" list of species, we could possibly square that against reality.
8,400,400 species
900,00 of which are aquatic
2,000,000 trees and plants
1,100,000 are "small species" and insects and reptiles
1,000,000 are birds
3,000,000 are beasts
400,000 are human species 
-We're missing 400 species, so I guess that's the wiggle room?
(if any poster wants to work this one for shits and giggles that would be great. The notion that there are 3x as many "beasts" (large land animals) as there are reptiles and insects, is to me, comedy gold.)
Now, I'm a huge fan of Hindu apologetics, and to hear Swami this or swami that explain away the creation stories, the math, or the "avatars and ages" is always a treat. They're worse than anything I've ever seen. When asked about evolution, they respond with "chicken or egg". Which I'm sure means something to the faithful, but sounds a hell of alot like gibberish to me. Now I've only done a very breif synopsis of their creation and cosmology accounts. It gets worse as time goes on and the vedas become politically charged. The "Seers" the Rishis, if they existed, may have seen something (and the drugs were probably very good), but it certainly wasn't anything we'd call knowledge today. It is a religion, founded at a time when any guess about the world around us was as good as anyone else's. A massive amount of opinion and speculation is required to make the vedas sound any more plausible than genesis. They are also in complete discord with each other in every possible way. How's that yardstick?
As far as everything answers:
If one wanted to test any given conjecture, such as "Brahma Exists", one would need to find some specific area to look. Postulating everything makes a test impossible, since we can't possibly say with certainty that we have tested "everything". If we take a specific example, Clouds. Clouds are Brahma, and therefor proof of his existence. Well, it appears that clouds are made of water, not Brahma. "Brahma is water". You see we could do this forever and never get any explanation for Brahma, or anything else. "Everything" answers are platitudes. It is a factually meaningless statement conceived of only to avoid actually explaining anything (because those who postulated it had no explanations to give).
You know eastern religions have become the new thing for a number of years, stemming back to the moment when the east became truly open for trade (beginning with a craze for all things oriental). Eastern religions seem to have two things going for them. A: that they're new (to us westerners), and B: that they're really old. Neither of these two things in and of themselves should give any rise to claims of knowledge therein. Oftentimes they do.
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