unreality

I could see how your statements could be offensive but I on the other hand see something beautiful in the ouroboros there (even if it is circular logic)... however, the fundamental flaw is that (due to its circular nature), it can be applied to ANY religion. I could use an exactly similar cycle of reasoning to prove that the Holy Book of Pasta proves the existence of the Flying Spaghetti Monster which proves the legitimacy of the Holy Book of Pasta, etc, etc. Since this cycle of logic in your quote can be applied to literally ANYTHING, it's clearly NOT the reason you believe but rather a justification for it. Think to the core of it. Why do you really believe? Why are you a christian? Help us not feel sorry for you for having no other options in your life to choose from... help us see why you can self-justify these beliefs you hold so dearly that in your own words do not adhere to reason but rather to an untouchable unexaminable faith. I really do genuinely want to understand, I hope you can see that

hahaha awesome, I just made this: http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/1894/churchsignc.jpg great practice tool, ADP edit ~ too bad about the watermark at the bottom, nothing a little photoshop (or cropping) can't remove though

Also, thanks to those that have/will respond/ed. Phillip, often I've thought about deism and if I had to explain my religion to, say, a girlfriend's extremely devout parents and it wasn't the time nor place for a conflict, I would call myself a deist. It's very similar to atheism, almost exactly the same IMO, but apparently a much easier concept to swallow for those who do believe in a god. LJayden, oops i didn't see that you had already responded. I am genuinely interested though: when you say "to further His kingdom in this world", what does that mean exactly? Are we meant to explore new lands? Create new people? Spread the faith? I'm not sure what that statement implies octopuppy, yeah I agree that we do do a lot of pussyfooting around religion… in my Comparative World Religions class we do less of the 'comparing' and more of the 'respecting' peace*out, I was baptized as well, but as a very young baby, basically I had no choice tiger_lily111, I love hearing testaments from people like you because you really are the hope of bridiging science with the faiths! dawh and Use The Force, I do think that you guys are in a better position atheistically than I, who never actively switched into it from anything. More on this in a later post perhaps EDM, the Professor Student conversations is inherently flawed. If you don't think so, send a PM to a member called "ADParker" seeksit & plasmid, I also have sort of incorporated various pseudo-spiritual concepts into my own personal atheistic theology

so going back to the questions I asked in the OP, how would you justify your own faith (assuming you were born into it, if not, how and why you switched).... because it seems to me your statements above, particularly "Faith rules over reason" are pretty self-defeating. Is it like the Supremacy Clause in the constitution? You use Reason every moment of every day of your life... except where it happens to conflict with Faith (or even consider negative things about the faith). Do you realize that this creates an indestructable shell around your faith and that if you had happened to be introduced to the "wrong" faith (e.g. let's assume you would see Hinduism as wrong) you would have no way to escape because, in your own words, it trumps reason. So what if that had happened? Place yourself in the shoes of being born into a Hindu family. Do you think you would see the light and become a Christian? Or would you apply the exact same "reasoning" (or in your own words, lack thereof) to be absolutely faithful in Krishnu, Ganesha, Shiva, etc, etc, etc? I'm not trying to attack I'm just pointing out that you've created a barrier that will prevent you from ever reconsidering your faith, so I know this post will also change nothing, so I'll stop rambling, but your input is most definitely appreciated, we would love to hear your answers to the questions in the OP. I guess you could call this topic a case study in the origins of personal faith/nonfaith

that's actually a pretty good idea. Maybe one of these upcoming days in june or something we should each go out and change a sign to say something not super offensive or rabblerousing but subtly scandalous haha

tattoo igloo kazoo taboo moo cordon bleu

so who makes the next rule?

unreality hasn't played this game before but thinks it's quite a good and engaging idea concept queue schism chasm orgasm spasm phantasm vacuum continuum pygmy crwth syzygy strength onomatopoeia amphitheater amphetamine amphibia

framm, I see where you are coming from. That's certainly the most (maybe only) compelling argument for a god creating the universe that i've ever heard. But it doesnt address where the god came from. You say the universe is too complex/perfect/beautiful/organized to exist just because. With me so far? also i've thought about this a lot and it comes down to One-or-Many: One Universe: either we are very very lucky to be here, or some aspects of the universe have been tweaked from within (if from outside, would imply Many not One but i guess that's open to debate) to lead to life. But moot point because we ARE here so we DID get lucky. If we wouldnt have gotten lucky we weouldnt have been able to consider that we were unlucky Many Universes: INFINITE universes, each one manifesting a logical possibility for a universe. Most of them would probably be totally empty, or whatever. An infinite majority wouldn't even be able to satisfy basic physics, let alone chemistry, let alone self-replicating microbiology. But in a tiny (maybe finite, probably infinite) minority, life can exist and reach the point where its lifeforms can ponder the universe. Clearly we are then one of those universes so we're not "lucky" because by definition being able to think about this means we just happen to be in one of those minority of life-supporting universes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle)

After seeing/reading/participating in many of these religious topics, I've often thought about my personal origin of not rejecting religion, but the thing is that I can keep going backwards... I remember in 5th grade telling some people I did not believe in god and one of them said confidently that I would be struck by lightning. Well that hasn't happened yet but I feel that my dad, who is a scientist, has influenced me toward reason from a young age. This troubles me because I feel like a hypocrite if I accuse anyone of being indoctrinated into a religion from an early age. It wasn't as extreme with me, very subtle, we still went to church on occasion but not often, so it was left kind of open for me to decide, but how could I have decided otherwise? I guess this is for the most part a moot point because in the last 5 years I have gone from passive nonbeliever to actual atheist by researching this stuff myself and participating in debates, but nevertheless I am aware how someone can be polarized by that kind of thing, so I'm wondering: (a) how did you become the religion/nonreligion that you are today? Were you born into it or did you switch to it from something else? (b) if you were born into it, how do you justify your adherence to it?

I think the book Contact by Carl Sagan is one way to look at, well, the contact - but it's sort of a best case scenario, although a bit far fetched and over-mystical with regards to the aliens (they were REALLY advanced there, almost infinitely). If we met aliens that were more like us on a technological/intellectual/political level, however, then yes there would be alien politics involved and it might get messy but I think that there's probably alien species out there now, or have been at some point in time, looking for life planets just for the philosophical/scientific sake of it. At least I hope that's true

dawh, would you really have contact with aliens pass us by, just on the chance that we may be destroyed in the process? It will certainly change our civilization forever, the next stepping stone since the dawn of man (scenes from 2001:ASO come to mind haha) but I can't think of an event better for the human race even if it ends because of it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100425/sc_afp/scienceastronomyextraterrestrialhawking Is it just me or is stephen hawking completely wrong? I don't care how many examples there are on Earth, space is different. The cultural analogy is just a manifestation of fear of the unknown. Even if the worst case happens and human civilization crumbles as a direct or indirect result of contact with aliens, it would be worth it in my opinion. I'd rather have us discover the ultimate truth, that we are not alone, rather than destroy ourselves anyway because of our shortsightedness and lack of universal perspective.

that was the most beautiful i've seen/watched in a long time, thank you! I loved all the golden ratio references

oops, when I said *never diverges* I meant *diverges* (as in, never converges). haha

Validictus: he isn't saying infinity as a number, he's saying that after an infinite number of terms, sigma 1/n! becomes irrational (e) profmmv: he's not saying that factorial and harmonic series are the same, he gave 1/factorial as an example of rational becoming irrational after an infinite number of steps, THEN asks about the harmonic series

What do you mean they'd be fine if they turned the computer off? They would cease to exist because the level above them would do the same. What's interesting is they can do a cascade effect to see what number they are. When everyone turns on the black orb, those in the real universe won't see a black orb and know the are universe 0. Then everyone that did see a black orb can make a second orb of shade 1 (if black is shade 0), and so univ0 woldn't make this new orb so univ1 would see that it hadn't been made for them, so they would know they were univ1 (the first simulated universe) and etc down and down. Each universe would know its own nesting level In the comments the writer acknowledges why it's logically impossible (mainly because the computer is impossible haha)

the comments to the store are just as interesting... i'm about halfway down. There's some heavy stuff being thrown around haha

I think everyone here should read this: http://qntm.org/responsibility

another way

as for the OP, I guess I would go with Affirmative. By using the word "indescribable", we are attempting to describe what was previously, well, indescribable ( ) and so it is no longer indescribable

sort of related: the "autological" paradox: http://www.curiouser.co.uk/paradoxes/word.htm#continue (and in case you want a list of possible words in either category check this out haha)

yeah - how many people are needed?

p4p - I agree with you 100% (well 99% but yeah haha)