h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

if you are imagining everything in the universe then how can you prove your existence.

Hi, sarabrite! Nice to meet you.

"A good reason for existing of the God is its creatures, Which force can create this wonderful universe with these beauties ?"

I think a quick visit to a religious web site containing videos of ritual beheadings should indicate that 1) the Universe is neither moral nor spiritual nor benign loving caring and 2) Believers in God are also very capable of lacking any morality or sense of humanity.

Aetheist similarly are capable of great crimes but part of the argument for God is always the essential goodness of creation and the excellence of its design, which is obviously nonsense. Just think of the pointless pain of impacted wisdom teeth. Aetheism does not rely upon moral superiority or aesthetics for its arguments.

One argument for Religion is its creative impetus, inspirational nature, long history, and challenge to mediocrity. Its an impressive argument, far more impressive than any argument from design and the need for a creator, and far more impressive and sophisticated than any concept of a moral need for a perfect being from which all laws descend. Part of the creativity argument includes the concept of evil, free will, mystery, role of suffering etc. and as such create a complex matrix within which many kinds of religious, artistic and scientific players can operate.

Yann Martel who wrote "Life of Pi" subscribes to this kind of idea by saying that one believes in God because such a belief makes life into a much more interesting story.

This is a sophisticated approach to Religion, and one that echoes very much Buddha's approach, and perhaps many Hindus. It smacks of polytheism and probably is anathema to Christian and Islamic purists. It also has a strong hint of aetheism within its boundaries. Buddha was an aetheist. There is no ultimate God in Buddhism. In fact there are no Gods, except that they are beliefs people subscribe to as ways of approaching enlightenment, rather than an ultimate reality.

One of the arguments Japanese Buddhists had against the Jesuit missionaries that arrived in Japan in the sixteenth century was surprisingly modern. They poo pooed Christianity as nonsensical because it subscribed to a believe in things that could not be seen, touched, or measured. The Japanese were not notably scientific in their thinking in the sixteenth century but they still demanded what comes close to being what we think of as scientific proof for events.

But whether the cultural argument is seductive or not, matters little in scientific terms. The facts are that belief does not create reality and that belief without evidence is irrational. That said, within the scientific method there is much study of the manner in which preconcieved ideas and the ideology within which they operate constrain what we can actually scientifically prove and what we consider scientific in the first place.

So getting back to the first question about the reasons for the existence or non-existence of God and supernatural beings one has to say, it depends what you mean by existence or non-existence, what you mean by God or supernatural beings. There are many reasons why belief one way or another develops, and I've touched upon thos. Existence is a tricky concept to pin down, for ideology has a habit of defining things in slippery terms that are hard to argue with within cultural context. And the term supernatural implies something beyond the capability of anything natural to understand or have much to do with and therefore excludes rational debate because the supernatural demands irrational thinking and dismisses the rational as close minded.

To Conclude:

The Universe has more and more been defined as what we can scientifically understand and anything outside of that is pure conjecture about which we cannot say anything useful. And further, outside of the Universe there is nothing that can effect anything inside. It is a closed system. If there is a God, it must be within the system and therefore capable of rational explanation. If the definition of God is that it cannot be capable of rational explanation then it does not exist except as some poetic conceit, a word with nothing but long historical cultural connotations.

However, "Nothing" in this universe is a very complicated concept for nothing has space and time as co-ordinates and these in themselves seem to lead to the evolution of events that produce all manner of things. Something without any co-ordinates at all, really is Nothing and from that it appears nothing comes. However, spatial dimensions themselves seem to be able to curl up and disappear and, one supposes, are capable of appearing under unfathomable circumstances. This suggests that something can come out of nothing, if only because our perception of nothingness is determined by the somethingness that we presently inhabit!

In short, modern physics holds the possibility of many strange phenomena that seemingly self create. But there is no man with a beard and an architects plan in any of this and as for "mind" being part of the process, it would seem that "mind" is something that has evolved from rather than created the event.

My belief is that no "mind" created the Universe. That "mind" itself is an emergent and evolving entity and has many "god" like qualities and because we have "mind" we have in the past imagined it to be inhabited or moved by many single minded mysterious invisible entities - giving rise to polytheism and ultimately a theory of psychology - and also evolved a concept of a great all inclusive mind that we have struggled, mostly unsuccessfully, to concieve of as both constrained by the Universe and somehow outside of it. Science seems to have produced an answer in the form of emerging properties of complex systems. Mind is a product not a creator of the Universe. Therefore there is no God.

However, God or no God, the question this leaves open for me is whether there is a greater mind than the human mind existent in the Universe and how far does its writ rule and how far does its moral status matter. Its nature is a mystery and it may be a mystery because it does not exist. We are the best there is, so far. At least, within our human dimensions we are. Mind is a mysterious and self-deluding object. We find it difficult enough to fathom the mind of species that we appear to be closely related to, let alone entities created in some manner unrelated to how we came about. So, our sense of superiority might be very misplaced and the average dog could understand more and be more aware than we ever could. Understanding the mind as far as it exists within us, will take us a long way to answering some of the wider questions of morality and existence. But not all! However, first things first. We are morally obliged, therefore, to continue the scientific quest. And that moral obligation is derived from our own mind as it stands now and not from any god... and certainly not from a god that requires sycophancy and suffering.

THE FUTURE OF THE BELIEF IN GOD -

Religion seems to be becoming less of a positive force in human society and more and more a negative destructive one. As our more technologically advanced societies undermine the basic beliefs of the ideologies of traditional societies, those societies develop a sense of doom and a desire for renewal. This renewal can come in two ways, either embrace the new order and the new culture with which it comes attached to, or re-assert old values, old systems of thought, and declare war on the great seducer. All religions appear to have segments of their constituency moving towards this kind of "End Of The World/ Rebirth From The Ashes" idea.

As scientific thought continues and rational enquiry into how we can live with this knowledge develops, it is likely that the die hardists will continue to discredit themselves and eventually disappear. The remaining belief systems will turn into vague cultural concepts taken relatively lightly. For instance, we all think Horoscopes are nonsense but we often take a look at them nontheless.

The Chinese long ago reduced their religious beliefs to lightweight left overs from previous eras that can supply fun on happy anniversaries and solemnity and structure for dealing with sadder events in life. The West will probably follow this kind of example and ultimately the rest of the world if rational technologically superior nations continue to dominate the world. The Church of England has long been notoriously wishy washy on all matters, and long may it remain so.

It is hard to see Religion disappearing from Human societies until human minds change significantly. But that is beginning to happen faster than evolution created the mind in the first place. Technology is introducing us to thinking mechanisms that will look more and more as if they are thinking like us, only better. And increasingly our interface with such entities will become more and more intimate. We are becomine Cyborgs, if you like. Prosthetics will become more sophisticated. And implants directly into the brain will become increasingly common. All this will serve to change our mind. Add into that longevity and the prospect of healthy brains with continuous experience and memories reaching back over what would have been two lifetimes, and one can easily imagine significant sifts in perspective and understanding of various levels of consciousness.

A new psychology will develop and with it new forms of religion that might not even be considered religion any more. On the other hand, a new concept of God might emerge. It will be very different from the present one.

hi the concept of god could never be changed coz god is always one and the same.

Hello, BlindLemonLarry.
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Such a view is not necesarily polytheistic, and so is not necessarily anathema to Christians or Muslims (not that I will answer for them..)
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Once again, not necessarily!
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This is a very unsophisticated idea of God, and one I don't think any believer actually adheres to! It's more Zeus than anything else..

>hi the concept of god could never be changed coz god is always one and the same.<

The concept of god changes all the time and no individual has quite the same idea. God may well remain the same. But different people have different ideas.

If there is a God, it obviously allows different conceptions, unless of course this is a God that does not allow different conceptions of God but can do nothing about it.

>Such a view is not necesarily polytheistic, and so is not necessarily anathema to Christians or Muslims (not that I will answer for them..) <

There are those that would characterise the view as hidden paganism. Not everyone and many Christians would accept it quite happily. Just as many accept the Trinity as monotheistic where others consider it Polytheistic... Muslims and Unitarians for instance.


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Once again, not necessarily! <

Yes, necessarily. Supernatural by definition is irrational. If it fitted into a rational ideology it would not be supernatural. Those who believe in supernatural entities obviously regard rational thought as not quite capable of dealing with everything. So those who do believe that rationality has no limits must be people whose views are limited to rationality and thus incapable of understanding the power of the supernatural. In other words, those who believe can only believe that those who dismiss their ideas as irrational and therefore wrong, as close minded, or some similar characterisation.


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This is a very unsophisticated idea of God, and one I don't think any believer actually adheres to! It's more Zeus than anything else.. <

Unsophisticated or not, all Christian art portrays God like this, and for that matter portrays God's son in a similar fashion. Islam of course considers this nonsensical and blasphemous for God cannot be pictured and even to attempt the job is idolatory. A lot of Christians believe all manner of things once considered heretic, and probably considered heretic by some other branch of the religion, so I'm sure that a number happily subscribe to the Star Wars thesis of The Force, as there are those who sbscribe to the Santa Claus and Good Fairy thesis.

evolution dictates that things are getting more complicated, so logically the supreme being must be at our end, not our beging.

>evolution dictates that things are getting more complicated, so logically the supreme being must be at our end, not our beging.<


Evolution is also a matter of refinement and simplification. So I'm not sure that things are more complicated. And as the Universe evolves the prognosis appears to be that it will dissipate all its energy and become a very empty and spread out place. Nothing could be simpler than to have everything reduced to a bland even spred of the simplest building blocks, whatever they ultimately turn out to be.

That in itself could be very complicated... Afraid the semantics here are problematical.

Mind has certainly developed over time but I don't think that means we can assume that mind will continue or develop and evolve into something even more conscious. It's a possibility but we can't create much of an argument for it being more than a brief phase in the development of the Universe.

Dear all,

Is there a Christian God? And what about the Son of God, Jesus? A new theory
gives new answers to this question!

Visit: http://www.carotta.de/eindex.html

Merry Christmas!

Jesus was Julius... hmm...

Well as the thesis begins by telling us there was no historical evidence of Jesus when frankly there was, one does not hold out much hope for the rest of the book.

Finding "parallels" between people's biographies is not proof of anything and, I suspect one can find parallels between everyone's lives... you're born, stuff happens, you die. There's a regular pattern.

Roman history obviously affected Christianity big time and Romans drew upon Greek models of biography writing and so one can reverse engineer texts and discover all manner of parallels and influences. The conclusions one draws from these things have to be of a sophisticated and more academic form that I suspect this books offers.

Christianity is just a transformation of the cult of Divus Julius. You can draw
conclusions before studying the book, or (much better!) afterwards as international specialists
did. hoc virtutis opus
See:http://www.carotta.de/eindex.html

An interesting idea, dudokje, but I don't think there's anything in it, sorry...

I think it also depends which form of Christianity you're talking about. Nestorians probably had little to do with any cult of Julius Caeser. But yep, Catholicism was no doubt influenced by Roman cults and they passed some of that onto Protestantism, which took up more Germanic influences and so on... I've a Christmas tree in my home right this moment that certainly has nothing to do with Julius Caeser, and also very little to do with Christianity.

But these books about the various influences upon the mythology and ritual of various religions are not talking about the truth or otherwise of a deity. And that is the topic under consideration here.

And one might ask that as a non-Christian aetheist why one has a Christmas Tree... well... I like rituals. I like history. I believe we should embrace traditions and symbols of where we came from and how the pattern of our thoughts developed. And any festival of tolerance and peaceful compromise seems to me a good idea.

I also like shopping and can't understand all the grumpy people who find it a chore. I like the parties. I like meeting up with old friends and the family, even if they are irritating! It doesn't matter. A celebration of being alive and among friends and extending a bit of that to those who have no friends and family all matters.

You don't need a God to tell you that. But it does seem that you need one to sustain hatred and justify atrocities.

Blindlemon, if christmas for you is "A celebration of being alive" why do you think its a good idea for people to cut down trees to shove in the corner of their living room?

Della, you dont go for the ideas in the book, care to share your wisdom with us rather that just saying you dont believe it, could you say why you dont believe it?

What is the historical evidence of Jesus ever existing?

The gospels arent copied from traceable sources that we can cross reference. Both of the Books that mention Jesus the Koran and Bible are from an unvarifiable source and one has its evidence being passed down by word of mouth.

Has anyone here ever played Chinese whispers?





Roman Catholics celebrate Christs birth at near enough Midwinters solstice. Easter another Roman Catholic Festival is so close to the old pagan festivals in the way its celebrated that its hardly distinguishable. Same goes for harvest festival, then theres all saints eve and Halloween. Pagan festivals were simply co-opted by the early church because it was easy to do so.

Protestant festivals seem to have more of a nothern flavour simply because many of the older Catholic festivals were stripped of their "popery" during and after the reformation in norther european countries. They do look closer to old pagan festivals but its just what marketing people today call brand differentiation.

one love

What is Chinese wispers?

I think that people use gods for scape goats, like if they cant explain something, they blame the gods...
we read the odessey recently() and the sirens and the whirl poolgodesses, they were just natural occurneces!
cheers
ford

There are a few independent contemporary sources referring to Jesus. The truth, metaphysical or historical, of everything in the New Testament biographies is another matter.


My Christmas Tree is plastic. But I eat Turkey. Christmas is still a festival of life. It's a midwinter festival. The Christian trappings have been tacked onto it and are part of my cultural background and that is that. I cannot dey it plays a part in my make up despite my being an out and out aetheist.

Merry Christmas, BlindLemonLarry, and a Happy New Year!

'God' is and was an imaginary being thought up by the church to keep people in their place.

The Bible has been rewritten so much since it was first produced that now all it is is a good story.

As you can probably tell i am an atheist. And I am new. So hi guys how ya doin?
Elen sila lumenn' omentielvo

hi Tom, agree with that partly, but also feel God or gods were first created by people to explain things they couldn't understand, a role they still fill to some extent today