No Magic

[Altfish]

No Magic, no supernatural stuff.

Does this make reality more or less interesting to you?

No crystals, no good luck charms, no prayer fulfillment. Nothing but physics and repeatable cause and effect. Mundane reality. Is this good enough or do you need more?

Is it possible to be happy without the other stuff?

Of course it is.
There is much I don't understand, there is much the best scientists don't understand but it just makes me more curious.
And curiosity is exciting. How something works in nature is a joy to find out. "God did it" or "It was magic" are cop-outs and do not answer the question.

Reality would be boring if when we failed to understand we just gave up and invoked magic

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Of course it is.
There is much I don't understand, there is much the best scientists don't understand but it just makes me more curious.
And curiosity is exciting. How something works in nature is a joy to find out. "God did it" or "It was magic" are cop-outs and do not answer the question.

Reality would be boring if when we failed to understand we just gave up and invoked magic

The challenge is if there is a limit to science and if that will remain so as long as we are humans.

 

[Altfish]

The challenge is if there is a limit to science and if that will remain so as long as we are humans.

Why is it a challenge.
I don't expect we (as humans) will ever say, "OK, sack all the scientists, we know everything"

"God did it" is such a poor answer - unless you can prove he/she exists

 

[blü 2]

No Magic, no supernatural stuff.

Does this make reality more or less interesting to you?

Much more interesting ─ you can get to understand how things actually work.

No crystals, no good luck charms, no prayer fulfillment. Nothing but physics and repeatable cause and effect. Mundane reality. Is this good enough or do you need more?

No, you overstate it.

Of course you can wear your lucky socks when you play golf, of course you always put the left sock on first, of course you can go to Marvel movies and X-men and read science fiction and Cinderella and Harry Potter. And what can beat a good ghost story?

And jokes like, Never die on a Friday, it's bad luck.

It's simply knowing what's objectively real, and what exists only conceptually or in imagination.

 

[viole]

I would like for you to explain how it is possible to believe in a god/gods in naturalistic terms.
No, not that is wrong, because of this problem.

Someone: The world is natural.
Me: No!
S: That is wrong.
Me: Then it is a natural fact of how the world works, that it is wrong. Wrong is a part of the natural world. So what is wrong in natural terms?

I am not sure I understand what you mean. When I say that I know that God exists, I do not claim certainty. Knowledge is not certainty, otherwise things like scientific knowledge would make no sense,

i know God does not exist in the same way I know that the speed of light in vacuum in constant. And that 19th century ether does not exist.

could I be wrong? Sure, but that does not suffice for me to demote my position by claiming agnosticism about God, possible violations of the constancy of the speed of light, the blue fairy, etc.

ciao

- viole

 

[Clara Tea]

No Magic, no supernatural stuff.

Does this make reality more or less interesting to you?

No crystals, no good luck charms, no prayer fulfillment. Nothing but physics and repeatable cause and effect. Mundane reality. Is this good enough or do you need more?

Is it possible to be happy without the other stuff?

Gun racks, torture camps, and unprovoked wars, fought by the Kind Kompassionate Konservatives. They save lives of fertilized eggs, while taking lives of women and kids. The voices of God, in their heads, to win these wars, tell them to kill for Christ. Some kill their congregations (Jonestown, and Heavens Gate) in order to swiftly get to heaven.

Organizations of White Supremacy, KKK, and even Aryan Nation, tout Christianity, as a terminus to the teachings of Jesus.

The Middle East is was built into a powder keg by their presidents (who wouldn't have got there without a lot of religious support), and that powder keg, according to their holy scriptures, will be the detonation point of Armageddon (a war that will wipe out humanity), and rature to heaven (perhaps by being physically blown to heaven by an atomic bomb). Like Dr. Strangelove, they relish the idea of nuking the world, with them in it.

They rail against the al Qaeda, which has warped their religion into terrorism (but isn't fighting the terrorism also a form of terrorism?).

This is not just an issue of creation....it is an issue of living, and an issue of ending life.

To the theists, God's environment was made just for them, and they plan to leave behind a toxic waste dump where God's beautiful nature once stood.

Theists doggedly support any notion that they are right....holding up the shroud of Turin as proof of Jesus. They seek proof of their religion, no matter what, and they don't listen to counter-prove that denies it. For example, the shroud of Turin can't be real because radioactive dating shows that it is simple not old enough. Scientists don't behave that way. Scientists are willing to change their opinions and theories when enough facts surface to change their minds. Scientists do not push an agenda, they merely choose the most logical path currently known.

So, theists doggedly assert that their evidence is right, though proven wrong, and they will not change their minds. Scientists, on the other hand, change when they have to. There is no doubt that scientists would support theology if they felt that it was right.

 

[Clara Tea]

Much more interesting ─ you can get to understand how things actually work.
No, you overstate it.

Of course you can wear your lucky socks when you play golf, of course you always put the left sock on first, of course you can go to Marvel movies and X-men and read science fiction and Cinderella and Harry Potter. And what can beat a good ghost story?

And jokes like, Never die on a Friday, it's bad luck.

It's simply knowing what's objectively real, and what exists only conceptually or in imagination.

Plenty of things that we think are real are not. Optical illusions, mirages.

Take a look at this long-winded, but simple to understand lecture by a Harvard physics professor. Things are not intuitive.

So, we can't trusts our own judgement or even trust our own senses. Given that, perhaps belief in God is not so far-fetched.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Why is it a challenge.
I don't expect we (as humans) will ever say, "OK, sack all the scientists, we know everything"

"God did it" is such a poor answer - unless you can prove he/she exists

There is in the Western tradition of proof, only proof of in the end tautologies and first person thinking and there is neither proof of God nor that the world is natural.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I am not sure I understand what you mean. When I say that I know that God exists, I do not claim certainty. Knowledge is not certainty, otherwise things like scientific knowledge would make no sense,

i know God does not exist in the same way I know that the speed of light in vacuum in constant. And that 19th century ether does not exist.

could I be wrong? Sure, but that does not suffice for me to demote my position by claiming agnosticism about God, possible violations of the constancy of the speed of light, the blue fairy, etc.

ciao

- viole

Yes, I get now. You use the word knowledge, where I use belief.

 

[Tiberius]

That's right.

Ciao

- viole

I'm curious as to how you could know there is no God to the same degree that you know, for example, that you have two arms. Not trying to start a debate with you about this, I'm just curious.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

No.

Happy atheists prove you wrong.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

The word happy can be used in two ways: to describe a state of mind at any given moment or to describe a state of the heart in long term. What I'm talking about is the latter. No doubt atheists can feel happy about things, but can they be truly happy? No.

What do you mean?

If I didn't believe in God I would be miserable.

Why?

 

[Secret Chief]

That's a problem I see for the BBT. Not saying that's not what happen but maybe it was something else. I suppose the BBT fits the physics/math but what actually started it all in motion.



Aww... I got crystals. They're cool looking. Just don't think they have any special powers beyond looking cool. Other folks do "feel" the energy from them.

I've got a few too, including a piece of lapis the size of a house brick

 

[Justanatheist]

Happy atheists prove you wrong.

Did you not know that secretly we all yearn for an imaginary friend to hold our hand on cold lonely nights!

Anyway misery loves company.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

The word happy can be used in two ways: to describe a state of mind at any given moment or to describe a state of the heart in long term. What I'm talking about is the latter. No doubt atheists can feel happy about things, but can they be truly happy? No.
...

That works in both directions. You can't be truly happy, because you are not like me. So right back at you.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Did you not know that secretly we all yearn for an imaginary friend to hold our hand on cold lonely nights!

Shhhhhht!

Were you sleeping at the last Atheist Convention??
We aren't supposed to admit this in public!!!

 

[Secret Chief]

If you think physics describes a mundane reality, I suggest you do a bit of research into Quantum Theory. For now, since you mentioned cause and effect, I’ll leave you with this quote from Carlo Rovelli’s ‘The Order of Time’…

“We often say that causes precede effects and yet, in the elementary grammar of things, there is no distinction between ‘cause’ and ‘effect’. There are regularities, represented by what we call physical laws, that link events of different times, but they are symmetric between future and past. In microscopic description, there can be no sense in which the past is different from the future.”

Nearly two millennia before physicists began questioning our intuitive (mis)understanding of time btw, a Buddhist philosopher monk made this observation;

“A non abiding time cannot be apprehended; an abiding time that can be apprehended does not exist. And how is a non apprehended time conceived?”

- Nagarjuna, The Middle Way

So, mundane reality? Don’t think so.

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

- Albert Einstein

I believe in reality (that's all I can do) but I think the use of the word "mundane" in the OP makes it sound a bit dull.

 

[viole]

I'm curious as to how you could know there is no God to the same degree that you know, for example, that you have two arms. Not trying to start a debate with you about this, I'm just curious.

See please previous post #45.

Ciao

- viole

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

See please previous post #45.

Ciao

- viole

Well, as per epistemological solipsism you have solved it by believing the world is fair(the Matrix et al) and natural. Other believe that the world is from and God and that God is fair.
I just believe the world is fair. I am an agnostic for what objective reality really is.

 

[Altfish]

There is in the Western tradition of proof, only proof of in the end tautologies and fist person thinking and there is neither proof of God nor that the world is natural.

Not sure I understand what you are saying ... but what is wrong with 'proof'?