Why you believe what you believe I

[Linaewen]

When did you start believing in your agnostic/atheist beliefs, or have you always held them? Were you raised in an atheist household?

[Rían]

What are your thoughts/feelings on the looting of the Antiquities Museum in Iraq?

[Lizra]

Originally Posted by Last Child of Ungoliant

you rot
and worms eat your brains
and ducks eat the worms
and your family eats the ducks
and so your family eats you when you die

Something like that....The duck probably just dies uneaten though....

[Rían]

I had duck once in Hawaii - it was good!

[inked]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Weeell, if you're sure....

What do I believe? Sometimes, I don't really know, myself. I waver between agnosticism, and strong atheism, depending on my mood. I am a strong proponent for the Theory of Evolution, and I'm not really sure how life started on Earth. I don't think it was divine in origin, though I don't want to completely write anything off. I tend to be "scientific" in my approach to my world-view,

WHAT DO YOU MEAND BY "SCIENTIFIC"?


and I am fairly certain that if there's more to life than biology,

SUCH AS?


IF there's a divine aspect, that it's not the christian one. As far as I am concerned, the Christian god is a construct invented by historic humans to explain their world, and surroundings from a historic POV.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY DIVINE?

In terms of the evolution side of thngs, I believe that while there are aspects of the evolutionary theory that need to be further ironed out, the evidence is firm for hominids evolving from a common ancestor with the apes. My interest in this subject matter were such that I spent my time as an undergraduate undertaking a degree in Anthropology, specialising in pre-historic archaeology and biological anthropology. I still have an on-going interesting in bio-archaeology/ paleo-zooarchaeology, and primatology/hominid evolution. To me, these ancestors of ours were REAL, and they are related. It's hard to argue against it when you've personally handled the evidence, and looked at skulls of these "primitive" beings. I look around me, and the evidence is everywhere that evolution is a REAL process. Ultimately, however, evolution is just a theory to explain the development of life here on Earth.

AN EXCELLENT POV ACKNOWLEDGING THE ACTUAL INDETERMINANCY OF THE "THEORY" BUT VALIDATING WHY YOU THINK IT WORTHWHILE!



It doesn't explain the origins of life, and that's where I waver on my hard-line atheist stance. It is at this point that I don't want to completely write-off a divine origin - though not a christian one.

ANY PARTICULAR REASON YOU KEEP SINGLING OUT CHRISTIAN BELIEF FOR DENIGRATION? THERE ARE THEISTS WHO ARE NOT CHRISTIAN, OF COURSE.

<edit>

Some other brief thoughts: humans are animals, albeit complicated ones, and morality is a humanly determined construct, and tends to be relativistic with some underlying commonality.

Well, that's enough for starters....

ARE HUMANS ONLY ANIMALS? HOW SO OR HOW DIFFERENT?

WHY HOLD THE POV THAT MORALITY IS HUMANLY DETERMINED CONSTRUCT?

WHAT ABOUT MORALITY IS RELATIVISTIC?

WHAT IS THE UNDERLYING COMMONALITY OF MORALITY?

WHY KNICK PANTS?

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

IF there was a god that created humans with the intent of interacting with them, would you say it makes sense for humans to be somewhat like the god? (and this isn't a "gotcha! Now you believe Christianity!" It's just a reasonable question, IMO)

I'm not going to follow this one Rian, as I feel that I have already answered this question with my previous comments on earthocentric/humanocentric religious ideologies. Sorry.

Another tack - who are some of your favorite people and why? (well, I guess that's a repeat question, but I like to ask it )

Hmmm.... I don't really tend to have a favourite person, or list of people. There are people I admire, though I always forget who they are! I guess I like people who have achieved something against the odds, or have something profound to say. Off hand, Jean Batten, Ed Hillary, Martin Luther King, John Lennon, Gandhi, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Einstein... Usual suspects, I'd say.

Originally Posted by Telcontar_Dunedain

Is there any aspect of Christianity or any other religion that you believe?

I don't "believe" in any aspects of christianity that I can think of, however, I do think that they have a pretty good set of rules... mostly, in the ten commandments - but these are filched from older civilisations like the Laws of Hammurabi. So, I guess, not really no. I don't. I think that Christianity has some interesting aspects, but most of those are building blocks from older civilisations. (cf the Egyptian Prayer to Ra).

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

What are your thoughts/feelings on the looting of the Antiquities Museum in Iraq?

"" sums it up pretty well. Un-freaking-believable.

Originally Posted by Lizra

What do you think happens to you when you die?

Cycle of rebirth. You die, you rot, you fertilise the grass, which feeds the sheep, which feed us. Well... not me, cos I'm vegetarian.

Originally Posted by Linaewen

When did you start believing in your agnostic/atheist beliefs, or have you always held them? Were you raised in an atheist household?

I've not always had them, no. When I was young, I was a christian of sorts. I wasn't in a formal denomination, nor was I a born-againer, I just believed in God. As kids are prone to do from time to time. My father was an atheist, and we used to have discussions on life, and why he didn't believe in God. My mother I'm not sure about. As I grew older, around the age of 11, I started questioning my beliefs, which to be fair, were never strongly religious anyway. Around that time, my father became a Born-Againer, though he abhored (still does) 'church-goers'. My mother converted with my dad, and for a wee while, me, my brother and my mother would go to church. This lasted for perhaps a year before my mother gave up on me (by this time I was seriously questioning the church). In highschool, I was an atheist, though a somewhat paranoid one (ie, I didn't think I believed in God, or whatever, but I still didn't want to take his name in vain, or anything... just in case). Last year of High School, I did biology, and between the dissections, and the evolution block, that was it... By which time I was already a cynical person anyway (due to many circumstances, like leaving home at sixteen, and having those "life experiences" that just harden you up). I guess it was a gradual process.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

I'm not going to follow this one Rian, as I feel that I have already answered this question with my previous comments on earthocentric/humanocentric religious ideologies. Sorry.

Here's what you said : "Why do I think that if there IS a God(s) that it isn't a personification of "man"? Because I find the notion vaguely silly, and arrogant. There's a whole universe out there, and the notion that that universe would choose to personify itself as a Man is, to me, ridiculously earthocentric. Reminds me of when people used to think everything revolves around the earth."

There are two points in your answer that I'd like to bring out.

One - I wasn't asking about how a "universe" might choose to personify itself. Two - I wasn't talking about "personifying" at ALL. I was talking about how a god/more powerful being that created the universe might choose to create a type of being that he/she/it desired to relate to at some level.

Your answer came ENTIRELY from your preconceived notions about what this god, if he/she/it exists, is like. There are other reasonable ideas out there about what this god might be like, and you are not taking these into account, and I'm asking you to consider the question from this different angle, and NOT in terms of personification.

So would you please re-read my question and give it a shot?

I guess I like people who have achieved something against the odds ...

Why?

I don't "believe" in any aspects of christianity that I can think of, however, I do think that they have a pretty good set of rules... mostly, in the ten commandments - but these are filched from older civilisations like the Laws of Hammurabi. So, I guess, not really no. I don't. I think that Christianity has some interesting aspects, but most of those are building blocks from older civilisations. (cf the Egyptian Prayer to Ra).

Does something being "filched" somehow invalidate it, if it's true? Isn't there merit in recognizing truth?

[Rían]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

"" sums it up pretty well.

Why does "" sum it up? What about it made you mad, and why?

(btw, I agree - what a loss! )

[BeardofPants]

Inked, your quotes are really hard to re-quote when they're imbedded in someone else's quotes.

Originally Posted by inked

WHAT DO YOU MEAND BY "SCIENTIFIC"?

I guess what I said earlier, that for me to believe in it, it has to be quantifiable. Logical. Based on a body of evidence - scientific evidence. Not that I"m writing off that whole "more between heaven and earth" business, but generally, I think there's a logical explanation for everything, and that things like ghosts, spirits, etc, are human constructs - they're not real.

Originally Posted by inked

WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY DIVINE?

A divine aspect of the universe? Well, I guess the characterisation of the universe having some quality that is more than just "existing". A force of personality, if you will. A god.

AN EXCELLENT POV ACKNOWLEDGING THE ACTUAL INDETERMINANCY OF THE "THEORY" BUT VALIDATING WHY YOU THINK IT WORTHWHILE!

No, no, and no. I have some issues with some of the mechanisms (for instance, I think that natural selection needs to be investigated a bit more, and punctuated equilibrium needs a bit of work), but overall, I think we're on the right track. Evolution exists, it happens, we just don't quite know HOW it happens.

Originally Posted by inked

ANY PARTICULAR REASON YOU KEEP SINGLING OUT CHRISTIAN BELIEF FOR DENIGRATION? THERE ARE THEISTS WHO ARE NOT CHRISTIAN, OF COURSE.

I'm denigrating ALL earthocentric theists, if you look at some of my other comments. However, I am guilty, as a lot of people are, of umbrellering all religions under the christian bracket, when you are right, there are other theists. To put it more clearly, I am against any personification of the universe. Gods don't exist, IMO.

Originally Posted by inked

ARE HUMANS ONLY ANIMALS? HOW SO OR HOW DIFFERENT?

Some people tend to separate humans from the "rest", I don't. I think we're very smart animals, granted, but we're not the "best", and we're not separated from the other animals in the animal kingdom, except perhaps through phylogeny! We're not the only animals to use tools, we're not the only animals who have sex for "fun". I firmly believe that if we give some of our other "cousins" a chance, they would have as much a chance of becoming sentient as we did.

Originally Posted by inked

WHY HOLD THE POV THAT MORALITY IS HUMANLY DETERMINED CONSTRUCT?

That sort of ties in with my comments on humans as animals. We have a "right" and "wrong" that enables us as a species to better survive, and certain things seem to be hard-wired into mammals at least. I think that humans just "are", they just exist, and morality is something that we use to label that existence in order to better survive.

Originally Posted by inked

WHAT ABOUT MORALITY IS RELATIVISTIC?

Because not all society is uniform. Different cultures have different ideas on what morality is. Obviously there is SOME uniformity to the concept of morality, which may or may not be hardwired, but I think that morality is determined from culture to culture.

Originally Posted by inked

WHY KNICK PANTS?

WHY NOT?

[Nurvingiel]

What's the Antiquities Museum, and what happened to it? How do you spell 'happened'?

Do you think there are other sentient beings in the Universe? What do you think they are like, if so?

[Last Child of Ungoliant]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Some people tend to separate humans from the "rest", I don't. I think we're very smart animals, granted, but we're not the "best", and we're not separated from the other animals in the animal kingdom, except perhaps through phylogeny! We're not the only animals to use tools, we're not the only animals who have sex for "fun". I firmly believe that if we give some of our other "cousins" a chance, they would have as much a chance of becoming sentient as we did.

i have always been of the mind that chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and most species of dolphin and porpise could achieve the same level of sentience as humanity, and some dolphin groups already are cleverer than humans

but there you have it

[inked]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Inked, your quotes are really hard to re-quote when they're imbedded in someone else's quotes.

A divine aspect of the universe? Well, I guess the characterisation of the universe having some quality that is more than just "existing". A force of personality, if you will. A god.

I'm denigrating ALL earthocentric theists, if you look at some of my other comments. However, I am guilty, as a lot of people are, of umbrellering all religions under the christian bracket, when you are right, there are other theists. To put it more clearly, I am against any personification of the universe. Gods don't exist, IMO.

I FIND THESE TWO RESPONSES TO BE LOGOCALLY INCONSISTENT. WOULD YOU ELABORATE OR CLARIFY,PLEASE>


That sort of ties in with my comments on humans as animals. We have a "right" and "wrong" that enables us as a species to better survive, and certain things seem to be hard-wired into mammals at least. I think that humans just "are", they just exist, and morality is something that we use to label that existence in order to better survive.

Because not all society is uniform. Different cultures have different ideas on what morality is. Obviously there is SOME uniformity to the concept of morality, which may or may not be hardwired, but I think that morality is determined from culture to culture.


IF MORALITY IS HARDWIRED TO ANY DEGREE, WOULDN'T YOU MEAN THAT EXPRESSIONS OF MORALITY ARE DETERMINED TO SOME DEGREE FROM CULTURE TO CULTURE BUT THE BASIS IS THE SAME?



WHY NOT?

Because!

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

Do you think there are other sentient beings in the Universe? What do you think they are like, if so?

I think that the universe is big enough that there is a chance of their being life on other planets. Whether it's sentient life is debatable. I don't know. I know that I don't think that we get "visitations" and aliens in giant UFOs every other minute. Somehow, I don't think that if aliens had to travel all this way, all they'd want is to give us anal probes. As for what they're like, that depends on how evolution would work on a large scale like that - would it be convergent or divergent evolution? I really don't know.

Originally Posted by inked

I FIND THESE TWO RESPONSES TO BE LOGOCALLY INCONSISTENT. WOULD YOU ELABORATE OR CLARIFY,PLEASE>

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're not getting. I don't think there's any divinity or "personality" embedded in the universe. I don't believe in God as a manifestation of a personality. As far as I am concerned, the universe just exists. There's no God-force, if you will, no creator. That's what I mean by the divine aspect.

Originally Posted by inked

IF MORALITY IS HARDWIRED TO ANY DEGREE, WOULDN'T YOU MEAN THAT EXPRESSIONS OF MORALITY ARE DETERMINED TO SOME DEGREE FROM CULTURE TO CULTURE BUT THE BASIS IS THE SAME?

But I don't think "morality" is hard-wired. I think that there's some behavioural mechanisms that are innate in animals, that work towards survival of the species, which in turn may be labelled as morality. In which case, whilst some of these aspects of perceived morality may seem to be universal, only really those related to survival would really be. Anything else comes down to culture, and the perception of that behaviour from that particular culture's POV. Take the incest taboo, for example, there is a chance that any offspring from an incestuous union may be mutated, however, it's not a significantly high risk. Incest is taboo mostly because of the perceived notion of it being wrong, not because it is deleterious to the species. This taboo does not translate to all cultures, and historically, it was generally more accepted. Morality, and taboos also change over time.

[BeardofPants]

Originally Posted by Last Child of Ungoliant

i have always been of the mind that chimpanzees, gorillas, orang-utans and most species of dolphin and porpise could achieve the same level of sentience as humanity, and some dolphin groups already are cleverer than humans

They would have to undergo massive restructuring before they could even begin to have the same level of sentience though. Particularly the apes, since their braincases are sizably smaller than the hominid cranial aspect.

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

Does something being "filched" somehow invalidate it, if it's true? Isn't there merit in recognizing truth?

No, it doesn't invalidate it, per se, but I like to acknowledge where this kind of stuff originates from if I'm gonna be giving credit for something.

[Telcontar_Dunedain]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

There's no God-force, if you will, no creator.

If there is no God as you believe then how did the earth come to be created, and all living and non living things that exist on it?

[Pytt]

i believe there must be some kind of creating force, but not like any "God".
beacuse the Big Bang couldn't have emerged from nothing. but i think we never can find it out. that makes me an agnosticker dosen't it?

[Elfhelm]

Originally Posted by BeardofPants

Take the incest taboo, for example, there is a chance that any offspring from an incestuous union may be mutated, however, it's not a significantly high risk. Incest is taboo mostly because of the perceived notion of it being wrong, not because it is deleterious to the species. This taboo does not translate to all cultures, and historically, it was generally more accepted. Morality, and taboos also change over time.

Great example. In anthropology the incest taboo is attributed to the likelihood that it damages economic alliances such as kinship groups. And the morality is structured to maintain those aliances which are tied back to the need to survive.

[Rían]

Originally Posted by pytt

i believe there must be some kind of creating force, but not like any "God".
beacuse the Big Bang couldn't have emerged from nothing. but i think we never can find it out. that makes me an agnosticker dosen't it?

It's "agnostic", but I like how you said it, too

Well, why not a "God"? I agree that something can't come from nothing, but that argument doesn't eliminate a God any more than it eliminates anything else. In other words, it would also elimate the entire universe starting from ANYTHING - God or goo.

What is DOES indicate is that SOMETHING had to be self-existent (i.e., non-created) in order for ANYTHING ELSE to exist, and that the universe came from that self-existent thing/being. And actually, that describes the God of the Bible perfectly

[inked]

Originally Posted by pytt

i believe there must be some kind of creating force, but not like any "God".
beacuse the Big Bang couldn't have emerged from nothing. but i think we never can find it out. that makes me an agnosticker dosen't it?

Pytt, it might make you a Shavian, that is a follower of the Life Force theory espoused by George Bernard Shaw. But there are significant problems with that approach if taken seriously. CS Lewis gives an excellent critique of it.

If you genuinely hold that humans cannot know about the issue of the "creating force" then you are agnostic about that. If you hold that we cannot know about "God" then you are agnostic about that. The question then becomes "can we know" or "how do we know"? Is it possible to know anything? Are you a thorough agnostic?

BoP,

you wrote: "As far as I am concerned, the universe just exists. There's no God-force, if you will, no creator. That's what I mean by the divine aspect. "
I suspect my confusion is the use of the word divine which means of , or relating to gods (divinities) or God (God-like). If the self-existent universe is divine, how do you deny it personality, for in Western thought the gods or God are self-aware and therefore personalities.

The universality of the incest taboo is like the universality of marriage, BoP. The normative human behaviour and regulation is forbidding closely related individuals from reproducing. The anomalous cases are those which permit it.
You acknowledge the exceptional nature of the societies which permit it but then assert they are proof of a non-moral source which you state is not damaged reproduction. Earlier you said "I guess what I said earlier, that for me to believe in it, it has to be quantifiable. Logical. Based on a body of evidence - scientific evidence." So which evidence is stronger for normative behaviours? Which, on the evidence, is anomalous? according to your belief system?


Elfhelm,

You attribute the incest taboo to an anthropological statement of economic necessity, yet the taboo seems to be existent in societies before that level of sophistication, so how did it arise before the economy instigated it? Aren't you reading back into earlier states a latter development?


Hey, BoP, I think your're the hot-seater, but I just had to tie those two questions together. You can steal Elfhelm's pants for revenge.