Something For Atheists to Consider

You can participate until you expire. Be my guest.
It will be without my further input (save for this brief reply), which you seem to want yet cannot
get however because you post in very bad faith and seem unable to make a single point without attaching an insult of some sort to it.

 

You would have to ask the atheists, that I referenced in my OP, about that! That's sort of the whole point that keeps eluding a string of atheists
ever since I began the thread. And it's really not that difficult to understand.

What does being an atheist have to do with the understanding of your own thoughts?

Well that's easily disproved since I don't pretend to know what God is all about, though I wish I did.

 

There are no insults on my part. You seem to perceive insults everywhere.

If I actually insulted you...I apologize, but as I said, I see none.

In any case, your argument simply does not stand up. You ARE NOT using logic to establish anything.

 

Your insistence that a belief in God is not logical.
But since logic consists of a premise (God is an all powerful creator of the universe) and a logical conclusion (therefore we can conclude that, being outside of and in control of, all of his own creation, God is responsible for the existence of the universe) there is no fallacy anywhere.

Now...what is it YOU are having trouble understanding?

 

I'd supposed such fury would arise from the idea that an afterlife has some sort of spiritual meaning. An afterlife as described by Sir Rogers in your article puts no such meaning on it, however.

I'm asking questions based on the article you used. Your article uses the word "soul" to describe what Sir Rogers states in that video, and the word soul implies a connection to the spiritual, but your personal definition of "soul" (consciousness of being) does not imply such a connection.

Does the information in the article you linked in the OP not correspond with your own beliefs?

But your article did when it used the word "soul".

You don't have to ask this every time you explain something; that's condescending. It's the sort of cheap insulting brow beating that I am used to receiving from many theists, or whatever you claim to be.

I'll let you know if there's something you wrote that I don't understand.

They are proposing that the mechanisms that contain our consciousness may continue to exist after our death. That's not necessarily an afterlife, and that certainly wouldn't be anything that would contradict atheist belief.

That's what scientists do, entertain ideas that have evidence of their validity.

 

My point exactly! Are you sure you understand what I am saying?

Empirical logic! Look at the ever expanding vastness of the universe and the billions of worlds and stars in it, all united by a set of physical laws and explain what force could arrange such
a thing? I know of no other concept except God that could explain it all.

A. God is an impossible absurdity.
B. The alternative however is even more absurd.

Before the big bang the atheist view was that the universe just simply existed throughout all of eternity with no starting point. It just always WAS.

Science has demonstrated now that view was wrong and all the assumptions were in error. And atheists just go on as if they never insisted their first position
was valid. I am convinced, as great minds like Einstein were, that science will confirm God though probably not the God imagined in the bible
though we will all die long before that happens. You see a choice between science or God. I see that as a false and unnecessary choice.

 

If you are hung up on the word "soul" substitute some other term then.
It makes no difference to me.

 

You had your chances.
Goodbye.

 

If this was published in Nature, Advances in Physics or some other peered reviewed journal rather than The Sun, a tabloid full of celebrity gossip and UFO stories, I would actually care.

 

God did it is neither a logical nor a scientific explanation for anything other than stone age superstition. Yes, those who want to believe those superstitions have a right to do so but they don't have any right to impose those superstitions on others or science and logic for that matter.

The big bang was conglomeration of matter and energy under the force of gravity. Compression results in an increase in temperature. Compressing all of that matter and energy into a singularity would have increased the pressure and temperature to a point when it would have exceeded the force of gravity. That would have been the cause of the big bang. And that exact same physical process is very similar to what happens inside a diesel engine where the air/fuel mixture is compressed to the point where it ignites causing an explosion that drives down the piston.

Yes, the above is simplified for the sake of this thread but the principle applies.

As far as why matter and energy coalesced into the singularity goes that would be akin to a black hole of immense proportions growing and growing while sucking in all of the matter and energy that it could. The more it consumed the greater the gravitational force.

Now imagine a cyclical universe contracting, exploding, expanding, cooling, contracting, etc, etc.

There are scientists who consider that a cyclical universe is a rational explanation for how things work and we are just observing the universe in one of it's periodic expansion phases.

None of the above requires "god did it" and it covers all of the aspects you mentioned.

 

Fair enough, and symbolically speaking, removing "soul" from the discussion is about equivalent to removing any spiritual or supernatural connections to the afterlife.

I think atheists would be comfortable with it. The description made by Rogers in the article's video doesn't require the existence of God.

 

Is this for real this time?

 

Sheesh, some Best Friend you are.

 

Okay. Well I would tend to agree but the Max Planck Institute is a very prestigious institution
so I really think using The Sun as a way to bash this story is a bit disingenuous.

- - - Updated - - -

No. It's not.

 

Faith is what you have when logic fails.

 

Okay. Whatever helps people cope with this idea.

 

they do not get that comparing two Atheists is like Comparing two Theists, even people that believe in the same God like Muslims and Christians have myths that are slightly different from each other

.

 

WAS there gravity before the big bang singularity?
I don't think so but perhaps you are right (though I doubt it).

And that "periodic expansion phase"? It's been going on since the creation of the universe fourteen billion years ago (or however many it was).
That's hardly a "phase".

Look, I get it. You are loathe to consider a being that could do such things. I disagree, period. As I already said the only thing more silly than a universe with a creator is one without a creator but you are free to believe as you like.

 

I confess I may not be everybody's best friend.

 

sounds like you have learned much from this thread..... live long and prosper


.

 

Let's see if it's a big deal to you when your govt starts printing "in the Hindu Pantheon we trust" on your bills. Or "in Satan we trust".

You're fighting like a five year old.

 

I don't understand what you mean.

 

Anyone who thinks such a piece will somehow lead non-believers to embrace their personal pet deity, earns mockery. Had you hidden your agenda more successfully, you might have attracted different responses. And no, I don't believe for one second that you are encouraging people to consider the possibility that all gods and all forms of 'afterlife' exist.

 

Insults are much more childish. Ease up on your defensive posture. All you do is substantiate my (simple) point. If you Atheists want to get your panty's all tangled about this then so be it...I got an election to focus on.

 

Oh you are? Well that's good, because I'm going to make it my mission to see science start taking Tarot Cards seriously. And Bigfoot. And well, anything we humans (sane and insane) 'intuit', really. Fairies, angels, magic, giant spiders, etc etc.

- - - Updated - - -

AKA, I'm too special to die so I'm going to believe that I won't.

GO SCIENCE!