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Matty
Conrad Black is an idiot who knows big words and how to assemble them.
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I think he's highly intelligent. I don't agree with him very often but he thinks at a very high level. Yes, he's also very annoying with his writing style of using big words that require having a dictionary available to translate.

Marty you cunt, don't derail my thread.
 
Matty
Just thinking about the fundamental question: "Why is there something instead of nothing?" brings you to all sorts of scientific impasses.

Atheism sidesteps that fundamental question. "We're here because of the Big Bang" is not an answer. What caused the Big Bang?

I like having an answer, even if the answer is that we, as dumb earthbound mortals, ultimately can't know.

That reminds me - Elon Musk's belief that we live in a simulation is also a religious belief, just with computer-nerd labels applied to it. The idea of a "simulated" world is interchangeable with that of a creator-god.
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I disagree. Atheists want to know the answers to life's big questions, too. I agree that it's fucking bizarre/amazing/sensational that SOMETHING created all of this out of nothing. In the same way that current scientific theory believes that this universe will eventually die of heat death... will life ever be created anew? Or that's it? Wild concepts beyond the scope of human comprehension, super cool ones at that.

But the fact that we don't know these answers doesn't suddenly make God or some higher power a thing. That's just the "God of the Gaps". Throughout human history we've always looked at things we couldn't explain with science as "God did it"... only to eventually be able to figure out what it is.


At the end of the day, atheism, by definition, is simply "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." To be a theist, you have to actively believe in God. If you DON'T actively believe in God, you are an atheist. I used to call myself an agnostic, but that was really just a copout... holding on to HOPE there is a God. I still want an afterlife. Total oblivion for eternity scares the shit out of me. But hiding behind "we can't know for sure" doesn't make a God or afterlife any more likely.
 
plommer
Hedonism. Nihilism.

Appealing, for obvious reasons. I still have a desire to be considerate and kind though.
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I tried hedonism. Leaned in hard. It didn't work for me.

I'm absolutely a nihilist. I think life is totally meaningless. Yeah, it's a cool little blip, glad I got a shot at it. But this 50-100 years is so infinitesimally small compared to the eons of oblivion I will cease to exist in. Had I never existed at all it would have been the same fucking thing really. Jeff Bezos and I are both heading towards the same infinite oblivion, so all his money and power isn't doing shit for him. Everyone who ever remembered you or who you had a positive impact on will eventually die, as will their kids and their kids. It all marches to total oblivion.

AND YET, I'm still considerate and kind to people. I still strive to grow and improve. To try to live with purpose instead of just chasing simple pleasures. Because that's how I'm wired. Our DNA is quite powerful. You can still be moral and good despite no spaghetti monster in the sky watching you... just like you can be a truly sadistic prick in the name of God as millions have before and millions will in the future. Life may be meaningless, but we're here, might as well try to make the best of it.
 
Vegas Dave
I tried hedonism. Leaned in hard. It didn't work for me.

I'm absolutely a nihilist. I think life is totally meaningless. Yeah, it's a cool little blip, glad I got a shot at it. But this 50-100 years is so infinitesimally small compared to the eons of oblivion I will cease to exist in. Had I never existed at all it would have been the same fucking thing really. Jeff Bezos and I are both heading towards the same infinite oblivion, so all his money and power isn't doing shit for him. Everyone who ever remembered you or who you had a positive impact on will eventually die, as will their kids and their kids. It all marches to total oblivion.

AND YET, I'm still considerate and kind to people. I still strive to grow and improve. To try to live with purpose instead of just chasing simple pleasures. Because that's how I'm wired. Our DNA is quite powerful. You can still be moral and good despite no spaghetti monster in the sky watching you... just like you can be a truly sadistic prick in the name of God as millions have before and millions will in the future. Life may be meaningless, but we're here, might as well try to make the best of it.
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Agree 100% with this Dave.


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I'm not very patient with people, especially dumb motherfuckers in public but I have a tremendous soft spot and love for animals, especially cats.
The only concern I have should I die in the near future is for my little buddy. I'd do anything to ensure he has a good life after I'm gone. Also, the thought of losing him is very depressing.

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Vegas Dave
Total oblivion for eternity scares the shit out of me. But hiding behind "we can't know for sure" doesn't make a God or afterlife any more likely.
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These are my favorite pages out of Don Hertzfeld's The End of the World:

Angel1.jpgAngel2.jpgAngel3.jpg

We're so terrified of the oblivion ahead of us and give little thought to the colossal oblivion before we were born.
 
I think I'm just getting soft with age. Atheism is not an especially fun position to defend.

Vegas Dave
I disagree. Atheists want to know the answers to life's big questions, too. I agree that it's fucking bizarre/amazing/sensational that SOMETHING created all of this out of nothing. In the same way that current scientific theory believes that this universe will eventually die of heat death... will life ever be created anew? Or that's it? Wild concepts beyond the scope of human comprehension, super cool ones at that.

But the fact that we don't know these answers doesn't suddenly make God or some higher power a thing. That's just the "God of the Gaps". Throughout human history we've always looked at things we couldn't explain with science as "God did it"... only to eventually be able to figure out what it is.


At the end of the day, atheism, by definition, is simply "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods." To be a theist, you have to actively believe in God. If you DON'T actively believe in God, you are an atheist. I used to call myself an agnostic, but that was really just a copout... holding on to HOPE there is a God. I still want an afterlife. Total oblivion for eternity scares the shit out of me. But hiding behind "we can't know for sure" doesn't make a God or afterlife any more likely.
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Fair enough. I shouldn't generalize my own atheist posture. But I feel like there's something non-committal about atheism in general - not believing in a higher power and offering no alternate solution/viewpoint seems like the cop-out, more so than the realization that proving the existence of a higher power is beyond the reach of the human mind. I dunno.
 
Matty
Just thinking about the fundamental question: "Why is there something instead of nothing?" brings you to all sorts of scientific impasses.

Atheism sidesteps that fundamental question. "We're here because of the Big Bang" is not an answer. What caused the Big Bang?

I like having an answer, even if the answer is that we, as dumb earthbound mortals, ultimately can't know.

That reminds me - Elon Musk's belief that we live in a simulation is also a religious belief, just with computer-nerd labels applied to it. The idea of a "simulated" world is interchangeable with that of a creator-god.
Click to expand...

Is there a reason that "something" requires more explanation than "nothing"? Absolute nothingness seems like a weird way to run reality to me. I'm being mostly facetious, but not entirely. There's something impossible about beings made of matter trying to judge whether a reality with matter requires explanation more than one without.
 
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Matty
Fair enough. I shouldn't generalize my own atheist posture. But I feel like there's something non-committal about atheism in general - not believing in a higher power and offering no alternate solution/viewpoint seems like the cop-out, more so than the realization that proving the existence of a higher power is beyond the reach of the human mind. I dunno.
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I'm with you in disliking those militant-type atheists that act like they know beyond all doubt there is nothing. Like, how? And they would scoff at us saying "maybe some higher power did create the big bang, who knows?"

But the burden of proof is on those claiming fantastical things. We can't explain why particles existed in the universe before the big bang, and that's a cop-out for not attributing it to some magical fairy tale guy? Atheism doesn't have to "offer an alternative"... it is based in fact and reason on things we do know and admitting we don't know on things we don't. Like I'm with you, WTF CREATED THE BIG BANG?!? And how INSANE is it that out of that so few planets can inhabit life and here we are. It's wild! It might be a series of random events or it might be some magical wizard. But it's the theists claiming and believing in the wizard man without any proof of him existing.
 
MrX
These are my favorite pages out of Don Hertzfeld's The End of the World:

View attachment 3623View attachment 3624View attachment 3625

We're so terrified of the oblivion ahead of us and give little thought to the colossal oblivion before we were born.
Click to expand...

I can certainly comprehend that BEING dead won't bother me at all. There won't be a me to be bothered. It will be absolute oblivion. No pain or discomfort.

But that doesn't comfort me at all. The very existence of me, being able to wake up and think and feel and laugh and cry and everything in between is all that I have and all that I know. The idea that it will be gone - forever and ever and ever and ever AND EVER sends me into complete terror fits.

Those terror fits will cease to exist along with the rest of me. Doesn't make it any easier now.
 
MrX
Is there a reason that "something" requires more explanation than "nothing"? Absolute nothingness seems like a weird way to run reality to me. I'm being mostly facetious, but not entirely. There's something impossible about beings made of matter trying to judge whether a reality with matter requires explanation more than one without.
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Zero seems easier to explain than 10^53 kg.

Zero is a comfortable resting state.

I did zero work so far this afternoon.

I have zero desire to rewatch Hamilton.

My wife never asks me why I didn't buy a new guitar pedal today. (I actually did and I snuck it in with the groceries, but as far as she knows nothing truly happened.)
 
Anyways...

You're completely aware that I could rattle off a dozen things where it would seem remarkable if they were zero.

I'm not even trying to be annoyingly contrarian. I understand the notion, but I really don't feel it. For the most part, the fact that there is at least one universe doesn't trigger anything in me to feel like there must be an entity behind it.

Although i think there is something to think about with the simulated universe idea. I know nothing about it, but I think the gist of it is, if you accept that it's technically possible to simulate entire universes, and you accept that technological civilizations exist, that given the unfathomable size of the universe, there have to be enormous numbers of simulated universes.

Given that, the odds that we're in the actual universe, and not in a simulation are about nil. I don't have a problem with that philosophically. I guess it makes a certain amount of sense. If our God is just some scientists fiddling around with universes and observing them, it would explain the indifference He/She/Whatever seems to have. Makes more sense than most Creator mythology to me.
 
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