The Question

[PickelledEggs]

Thought needs to exist prior to the development of a physical brain, logic matters.

You are diarrhea.

[PickelledEggs]

It's literally word diarrhea soup from lategreatplanet. Since it's been a persistent effort from him to remain incoherent and full of nonsense posts, plus his doosy of an intro post (See quote in spoiler), I'm just going to have to toss him out.


[spoiler]

To demonstrate love in action via His salvation provision which is on behalf of each individual which was done at great cost. Think of Christ bearing the penalty of sin personally on a infinite timeline that was created for each person individually which was executed by His capability to compress infinity to a non-infinite time. Everyone's name is written in the Book-of-life, but some are expunged since by committing the unpardonable sin (which committed upon their death) of not accepting this was done on their behalf. Those persons will have their name expunged from that book which are opened at the Great White Throne Judgment. Those that believe this was done on their behalf, appear at the Judgment Seat of Christ. So, in the end, everyone stands before the Moral Ruler of the universe. Also, humans were created for the education of the Angels ("which things the angels desire to look into"). The reason God doesn't get bored is because of the Trinity (3 Persons sharing one divine nature).

[/spoiler]

[city]

That troll waylaid the thread and I'm glad he's banned now.

I voted that I would believe in a God if sufficient evidence was presented. I think that drunkenshoe's answer is interesting and contributes. One of the reason's I am an atheist is because I recognise varying human needs projected into theist's definition and description of their god, the idea is man-made and man-centred. It boggles the mind to conform the hypothetical idea of evidence of a god to the reality we see now. The origins of human society and the state of the world itself is why I don't beleive in a god in the first place. The evidence of a giant talking head or something I imagine I would require would actually still raise more questions than it would answer (therefore it should be something like a big talking and responsive head that allows subsequent questions to be answered and resolved).

Unless god's answers unveiled things hidden from us currently but still within the realms of science/reason/physics, to imagine my ideal evidence its almost as if my hypothetical answer would have to make changes to the world as we know it. For example, humans would be born with the knowledge of god, no memories of infant childhood but somehow remember their sky daddy's face for me to really believe in a god. Which is why in this reality and world as we know it I do not believe in a god.

However I like the OP's question and have willingly given an answer (giant talking head giving continual answers that clarify/accelerate a logical scientific path) in the spirit of the way the question was asked.


I don't know whether the rest of what I write would be considered waylaying the thread myself and I apologize if it is.

I had a conversation with a theist which began with OP's question. They at first refused to answer at all and I found this annoying at first. It was annoying to experience some kind of barrier to communication with each other's minds (non-existent things interfering) when we're both just humans in the same external environment. It was annoying that I was willing to participate in the hypotheticals when they weren't.

But then they said rather than being pure stubbornness it was actually that they imagined the entire state and makeup of what the world's like as being different if a god didn't actually exist, so said they simply couldn't answer what their evidence could be for a god not existing when their hypothetical situation would require an alteration of the world itself to make it happen. I stopped being annoyed at this point in the conversation. I'd heard a theist say something I hadn't heard one say before and realised how interesting it was that we both thought the world would be completely different in each other's scenarios.

In this theists imagination, the world would be much worse than it is now if a god didn't exist, and would be exactly as it is right now if a god did exist. In my imagination, the world would be much better than it is now if a loving god did exist, and would be exactly as it is now if a god didn't exist.

So we've got a scale of horror: 1 being dystopia, and 10 being utopia, and my without and with god lies on 5 and 10, and their without and with god lies on 1 and 5. Our reality at point 5 is the only thing we can observe, I understand this divergence on the scale as one of the issues faced when trying to communicate with theists.

I feel the bible has taken what the world is to be now, and manufactured ideas around it (god of the gaps) and introduced interwoven fallacies for theists to divert between them instead of pinpointing any one. The illogicalness of the bigger picture is what makes me an atheist. The theists would have people believe that it all comes down to whether you take the bible writers word as the truth or not, simple faith, but I am neither a sheep nor gullible. The illogical bible requires 'faith' and the world ticks by unchanged without faith. The supernatural claims it makes as a religion are the very things that allow us to dismiss it as we simply do not get in this reality.

My claims of a world with god being different to this world were actually based on the logical repercussions of a true 'loving god of the bible' as described BY THEM! And the forum has discussed before all the reasons the bible doesn't fit in logically with the reality we actually see and share.

The theists claim of a world without god however, were things like: humans would be less sentient and akin to the other wandering animals we see. No morality. More crime everywhere. no sense of awareness. These are baseless assumptions with no reason to think this beyond their own imagination.

[Baruch]

I agree that the present world is irrational.  I am only able to consider theism, because I can accept an irrational G-d.  I am not saying a theist is irrational, or that an atheist is irrational ... but in an irrational world, both are true.  I don't accept the pipe dreams of Aristotle and Zeno of Citium.  Logic was originally developed by Parmenides, and skillfully used by Zeno of Elea ... as reductio ad absurdum.  Not to promote a particular system, but to arm skepticism to demolish ... a weapon of mass verbiage.  Logic was constructively used by Euclid and his predecessors ... but only in the domain of math.

But it is a very common view in many cultures, that without law, society would fall apart.  In a culture where law arises in the context of religion (the majority of history) ... that assumption is confabulated with the idea that without a religion (actually they mean their particular religion), society would fall apart.  Anarchists deny the first assertion.  Separatists (separation of religion from politics) solve the confabulation.  Atheists solve the final point.  Anarchist/Separatist/Atheist individual as a combo, is not challenged by this assertion.

[city]

In the conversation I had, I felt like our imaginations were forcing this present world to be some sort of grey-area which doesn't fit 100% with either the idea of god or no god because I can't assume my imagination is more important than anyone else's. But then I looked at just facts, reasoning, and evidence that I've witnessed personally and realised these are the things that would identify a no god world as making more sense. I wouldn't say the present world is irrational. Physically it is what it is. Because there is no supernatural claims for it to be incalculable or incompatible with, discrepancies don't exist without a god as much as they do trying to incorporate some sort of idea of a god.

[widdershins]

I legitimately don't have a clue what would change my mind.  A guy once asked me, "If you saw God and he told you what you had to do, would you do it?"  I thought about it for a moment and replied, "No.  How do I know it's God?  The devil can appear as an angel of light." (2 Corinthians 11:14)

And that's really the trouble.  Am I going to trust some floating ball of light because it says it's God?  Why would I simply blindly believe that is what it claims to be just because I don't understand it?  But here's the thing, I don't need to know what would convince me, because God knows what would convince me.  And if he wants me, he knows where to find me.  So maybe at some point when he's not too busy not existing, he'll pop in and give me a little guidance.  That's what it would take.  The current method of, "You have to believe first AND THEN you can see the evidence for it" just doesn't work for me.

[stromboli]

Transport a person from the 16th century to the present day- before railroads, telegraph, telephones, etc. And it would appear to him to be a miraculous world. But show him the history of technology's creation and it would no longer be so. We live in a world now that delves continually into theoretical areas that many of us can't comprehend, yet we accept rationally that it can occur. The god of the gaps idea to me no longer holds water, because the theoretical possibilities into the future are nearly limitless.

for a god to appear and convince us it was a god would require something so beyond our ability to imagine that I don't see how it could. Even though we don't comprehend the future of technology in its fullest sense, we still can rationally grasp that it can and will eventually happen. Any "miracle" would have to be something so beyond our ability to imagine that it could only be a god.

[Mike Cl]

But here's the thing, I don't need to know what would convince me, because God knows what would convince me.  And if he wants me, he knows where to find me.  So maybe at some point when he's not too busy not existing, he'll pop in and give me a little guidance. 

I like the way you put that!  I'm going to steal it from you and use it myself. :)

[Baruch]

Being a technologist myself,  I have no faith in the future of technology.  I work with broken technology, designed and operated by broken people.  Anything about the future, is faith based, even the atheist kind.  Technology is a product of a fallible humanity, and misused by that same ape man.  Technology will continue to advance, until the robots kill off their carbon based masters. 

This was the basis of the introduction of the word "robot" into common vocabulary ... a 1922 Czech play that parodied the rise of communist labor against capitalist management.  Robot is the Czech version of the general Slavic word for ... laborer.  In capitalism, there is no future for ordinary human labor, humans can't compete, and competition is everything to the capitalist ... social Darwinism.  Machines are the Omega Point of De Chardin.

As to what would change my mind?  I have already done so many times ... but not too many more times, as time is running out.  The dwarves have dug too deep, and the orcs are at the gates.

[stromboli]

Being a technologist myself,  I have no faith in the future of technology.  I work with broken technology, designed and operated by broken people.  Anything about the future, is faith based, even the atheist kind.  Technology is a product of a fallible humanity, and misused by that same ape man.  Technology will continue to advance, until the robots kill off their carbon based masters. 

This was the basis of the introduction of the word "robot" into common vocabulary ... a 1922 Czech play that parodied the rise of communist labor against capitalist management.  Robot is the Czech version of the general Slavic word for ... laborer.  In capitalism, there is no future for labor, humans can't compete, and competition is everything to the capitalist ... social Darwinism.  Machines are the Omega Point of De Chardin.

As to what would change my mind?  I have already done so many times ... but not too many more times, as time is running out.  The dwarves have dug too deep, and the orcs are at the gates.

Interesting point. Assuming in the future we incorporate technology as physical body parts- which is already begun, with new "smart" limbs that can impart feel to an amputee- to a Borg-like society where rather than an Iphone or wristwatch we have an implant connected to us through direct neural connection.

It is one of these "free us or enslave us" situations. Each individual become a stand alone computational engine- or, I fear, more like what you allude to- a society of Borgs, subsumed by a government or other organization.

And indeed it might be the end of humanity as we see it now, more manufactured body parts than natural ones, essentially anthropomorphic robots. 

Or as you stated, needing no humans at all- robots to do the labor. Scary.

[Baruch]

It is here now ... I am part bionic myself, though not like an advanced amputee would be.  There are others who are that way.  Cyborgs are probably intermediate before you have true androids.  Resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated.

In the Internet Of Things ... it is all networked.  You will be just a cog, and probably not even aware you are a cog.  Because volition is only for the Elite.  The early Borg collectives already exist ... as corporations, for-profit or non-profit.  This is why the SCOTUS has named corporations as legal persons.  And why no one will overturn this with new legislation.

[jonb]

Being a technologist myself,  I have no faith in the future of technology.  I work with broken technology, designed and operated by broken people.  Anything about the future, is faith based, even the atheist kind.  Technology is a product of a fallible humanity, and misused by that same ape man.  Technology will continue to advance, until the robots kill off their carbon based masters. 

This was the basis of the introduction of the word "robot" into common vocabulary ... a 1922 Czech play that parodied the rise of communist labor against capitalist management.  Robot is the Czech version of the general Slavic word for ... laborer.  In capitalism, there is no future for ordinary human labor, humans can't compete, and competition is everything to the capitalist ... social Darwinism.  Machines are the Omega Point of De Chardin.

As to what would change my mind?  I have already done so many times ... but not too many more times, as time is running out.  The dwarves have dug too deep, and the orcs are at the gates.

The presumptions there is that the robot is less expensive than a human. There is little evidence for this.

Also that drivers behind technical development are not logical, these drivers I would say can be just as illogical as everything else.

Think about this at the end of the Roman empire it had troops so covered in armour that they were almost invulnerable.

However these troops were very expensive to equip so the Roman army shrank in number and became increasingly reliant on outside forces.

The average cruise missile in the Iraq war was probably more expensive than anything it hit.
The average FRONT LINE American jet fighter is twenty five to forty years old and only designed for a life of 10 years max.
If economically a market cannot protect itself then it is not likely to last. For humans to be replaced by robots the market capable of producing robots is needed.

PS I have voted but I am afraid to say it means nothing because the vote was biased by the OP.

[Baruch]

It isn't economics that drives the upper classes ... it is fear and hatred.  Market based logic is so ... 18th century.  This fear and hatred will ironically end in the production of Daleks.