@TheFlyingPig
As incredible and crazy the claim that life sprung from a gathering of cosmic dust that created our solar system is.
The notion that life came from a more complex entity, and that entity gives even remotely cares about the actions of particular humans is a far greater incredible and crazy claim.
The origins of life actually has a trail of clues we can examine and discover, we do not have a full picture yet, but the details are filling in every year as human knowledge expands.
Where the various greater entity idea that cares about us humans, has left zero clues, nothing but talk by humans humans capable of deceit and being deceived. These types of ideas have stagnated and regressed in the last 2000 years and had have the most blatantly wrong claims edited out or explained away as hyperbole. Genesis reads exactly like a 2000 year old fantasy of human writers, and nothing like a great source of higher level knowledge.
I could write a “book of instruction” send it back 2000 years and create the greatest civilization by far the world has ever seen at that time. Simple things like basic hygiene, antibiotics, cpr method, easily conquer the rest of the world, (gun powder, steel). I would not even need to rely on “prophecy.” And I am a mere human, educated at the turn of 21st century.
The fact that anyone would defend 2000+ year old highly edited and obviously fiction fantasies is frankly absurd, except billions of people do it to this day. I wonder how many people worldwide got covid because they took few if any precautions because they figured their god idea was happy with them and would not punish them and their families with covid.
In my opinion, the manner in which an investigator goes about finding the truth is relevant. What I am thinking of is initial approach.
Do you begin an investigation intending to prove something, or begin an investigation just following the data? And even then, willing to accept the conclusions?
I always refer to Perlmutter and his team, they set out to determine how much the expansion of the universe was slowing. His data indicated the opposite, the universe was accelerating in it’s expansion.
@TheFlyingPig
Your mommy eats bananas. The atoms in bananas are inanimate and lifeless. They proceed to bond with complexity and then at some point, life emerges. Bananas are material buy if your mommy did not eat bananas, she would die. Everything comes from the material world around us. Where am I wrong? Can anything at all exist in any way at all without having a material origin? Can you demonstrate the existence of anything that is not directly connected to the material world? Lifeless, inanimate, atomic matter, is the starting point of everything… even consciousness.
Answering my question yes like you did, the conversation then goes to epistemology, or how we find truth. The primary differences enumerated in this chat here are epistemological ones. Fallacies, for example, are known, bad epistemologies.
As a quick side statement, I would argue that the concepts of good and bad only exist in the minds of beings capable of understanding those concepts and must be defined in order to have any meaning.
I would define a good epistemology as one that can be used to build models that most closely match reality, and conversely, a bad one does not. My good epistemology states that if you are creating a hypothesis concerning reality itself, it must be based on measurable data. This is where the concept of falsifiability comes in which is part of my epistemology. It doesn’t necessarily hurt to go looking for data if you have a hunch, but you shouldn’t assume that your hypothesis is true until you have some measurable data and successfully ran it through the rest of a rigorous epistemology. For me this must include others measuring the same thing and getting the same results.
The problem is that people assume that god exists, then assume that it wants something, then assume others must know about this god, on and on it goes. One danger when guessing is that some are tempted to discard data that doesn’t match their model, and only include things that do. This is static modeling caused by faith and is why there are over 4000 religions.
That question is a little weird. If you are trying to prove something is true, the methods you use are important. If you are postulating that something is true, then you don’t need any method (but you shouldn’t expect this to convince anyone).
Nope. The atheist position is that god didn’t do it. That’s all.
The inanimate, lifeless matter didn’t come from nothing, either. It came from fusion reactions in stars. Some of it aggregated into rocky planets, where it was exposed to pressure, heat, chemical reactions, radiation, and other processes. That went on for billions of years, and then about 6,000 years ago a magic sky fairy popped into existence and created all the life on this planet. And we all lived consciously ever after.
I’m not implying anything of the sort . I asked if consciousness was an emergent property of matter which you all believe it is. Without a single piece of evidence I might add , except somebody claiming it was rational . If consciousness is independent of matter , which is most certainly a rational position to take , then that changes the whole debate of scientific materialism - God.
Do you have peer reviewed empirical evidence to show that consciousness is an emergent property of matter or is it something you just accept on faith ?
Is “wetness” an emergent property of H20? Or does “wetness” exist outside the chemical components? You ignored this. You jumped to consciousness being independent of matter.
Give a demonstrable example, please. I can point to “surgery” where a “consciousness” is suppressed but the body is alive regardless.
Do you NOT see the difference? Do you have the peer reviewed paper demonstrating that consciousness exists outside the brain ?
We (science) is still examining the mystery of “consciousness” HOWEVER the exploration of it is where it takes place - the brain .
LOL I love how you toss out the word “rational” in a sentence without understanding the meaning of the word, in an attempt to “rationalize” your thinking and decision making.
Why is it so difficult for you to just state the truth (from what you’ve shared on this forum) - “you have an irrational belief in god” AND be done with it. It’s not a big deal as long as you’re not a politician pushing a religious agenda OR an educator trying to push a religious idea of “creation” in the classroom OR apart of a religious “charity” that pockets most of the money and doesn’t contribute to that society via taxes OR spew forth bigoted opinions on those you deem morally reprehensible …
The oil -street directory analogy doesn’t work , you have brought design into the equation which I’m pretty sure is something you don’t want .
Grinseed - To believe that nothing happens, or can ever happen, without some sort of conscious agency or witness, is closer to a ‘stone age’ superstition than any rational scientific view of reality.
Quantum mechanics tells us that nothing exists except observations . You are wrong .
Oh fuck!!! ROTFLMFAO …you’ve written some stupid shit - this one is fucking hilarious
Edited to add: Pigs have some great qualities - however they also have a lower intelligence/cognitive ability than a human plus the “flying” part - Jesus fuckin’Christ YOUR online name says it all … pigs can’t reason (you have this in common) and contrary to popular belief, pigs can’t fly - however @TheFlyingPig likes to think he can do both…
this story… nighty - night…
demonstrating that consciousness exists outside the brain 
?
I love how you toss out the word “rational” in a sentence without understanding the meaning of the word, in an attempt to “rationalize” your thinking and decision making.
…you’ve written some stupid shit - this one is fucking hilarious 