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Storm
SFN Regular

USA
708 Posts

Posted - 12/31/2004 :  19:45:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Storm's Homepage Send Storm a Private Message
What definition may that be H.? The Christian one?
What would be good enough evidence Kil?
Maybe you need to break free of the ball and chain of christian fundamentalists, catholicism, try some more Pagan religions. ones that will not put rules upon you and make you feel worthless. Some of these religions put you real in tune with nature. That is of course if you have any desire to believe in these things. Even if you do not believe it is very fun and relaxing.
Those laws are the ways in which the Gods and Goddesses work.
God is just a word just like nature
The tsunami happened because of sin....
The tsunami happened because of a natural Earthquake ....
Even in Nature monsters are created....
Not a diest but an Odinist am I...
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Storm
SFN Regular

USA
708 Posts

Posted - 12/31/2004 :  20:09:41   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Storm's Homepage Send Storm a Private Message
Check this site out
http://www.pantheism.net/
Thoughts
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26020 Posts

Posted - 12/31/2004 :  23:11:19   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Big deal. Belief in the Norse gods is no more grounded in empirical evidence than belief in any other god. Being an Odinist is no better nor worse (evidence-wise) than being a deist or a Catholic or a Hindu.

And as soon as you start saying things like "God is just a word..." you strip words of all their meaning. You post now reads "freeblemunglefartfart" to me.

And so, since you've now told us your posts really are meaningless drivel, you can stop.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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Dude
SFN Die Hard

USA
6891 Posts

Posted - 12/31/2004 :  23:33:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Dude a Private Message
quote:
The phenomenon known as God or what has been labeled God, Odin, Luna, are the same phenomenon labeled nature by the atheists, agnostics.....


I can't even respond to this statement without, in some way, mocking or insulting you Storm. But I'll try, none the less.

The depth of ignorance illustrated by that remark is stupendous.

The natural world, apart from homo sapiens (as we are a part of the natural universe), does not display consciousness. The description of ALL gods attributes them with consciousness.


Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson

"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin

Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth
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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  06:24:54   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
[blink]
Ok, then. I'll quote Carl Sagan, who put the issue better than I.

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying... it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Storm
SFN Regular

USA
708 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  08:40:04   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Storm's Homepage Send Storm a Private Message
Well it does not display homo sapiens consciousness...
Are not laws themselves consciousness...
Organized....
We do not have to tell nature how to work ....
She already knows....
She is conscious of it....
Well Dude maybe we need to redefine the word God. Humanity has gone it since the beginning...
Why not us?
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  09:38:25   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
Definition of God: A quaint, if often bloody myth put forth to satisify questions to which we have no answers. "God done it!" cannot be refuted.

God: An excuse to kill everybody who fails to worship my version of it.

God: an excuse for personal short-comings. "God doesn't want me to do that!"

God: An attempt to take the high, moral ground while still being completly human with all of the evil that entails.

God: An attempt to glorify our less-than-glorius selves. "He made us in his image!"

Shall I continue?


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

Edited by - filthy on 01/01/2005 09:39:33
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  10:19:53   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
We do not have to tell nature how to work ....
She already knows....
She is conscious of it....



This is an example of the pathetic fallacy.

quote:
The pathetic fallacy is the logical fallacy of treating inanimate objects or conceptual entities such as countries as if they have thoughts or feelings.


Nature does not know doodly-squat. Nature just exists.

Here is a good reference on how this fallacy is used in education:

quote:
“Air hates to be crowded, and when compressed it will try to escape to an area of lower pressure.”

This is what a teacher at the University of California at Davis suggests is one of the “simple facts” which intermediate students should master. Apart from the disturbing realization that the author apparently does not distinguish between pressure and density, there is the sad business of a post-medieval university proffering animism as science to children. Mind you, the air's hate, if thwarted, might well lead to desperation, as is explained at the University of Texas at Dallas.

“the atmosphere tries more desparately [sic] to escape the decreasing volume”

Maybe these teachers would also recommend that the atmosphere seek professional counseling so as to help it control its psychoses, and if so, from whom? the ocean? the mountains? or, maybe the Department of Animistic Psychiatry at one of their own universities?



I try to keep this in mind when explaining stuff to the kids. It may seem like it helps to explain a concept, but its really just a lazy mental shortcut that fails to adequately explain anything.

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Storm
SFN Regular

USA
708 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  10:40:29   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Storm's Homepage Send Storm a Private Message
Wreck I am surprised at the comment....
nature does not simply exist...
if you are offended that I call it she than let me say it is a complex system goverened by laws...
Natural Selection...
Survival of the fitess...
Life, birth, death....
Does not sound like doodly squat to me....
Not me who is pathetic....
Maybe Filthy you should dump the Hebrew God As it seems that's what most your definitions are based on....
There are many others who may fit your ideas and beliefs....
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  12:04:43   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
Actually Storm, I have long ago dumped them all. I find little difference between one and another in that they are all of fanciful, human construct and therefore ubworthy of anything even resembling worship.

By all known evidence, everything in existance merely exists. It has no purpose beyond continuing that existance.


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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R.Wreck
SFN Regular

USA
1191 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  13:17:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send R.Wreck a Private Message
quote:
Wreck I am surprised at the comment....
nature does not simply exist...



Do you have any evidence at all that nature does more than exist?

quote:
if you are offended that I call it she than let me say it is a complex system goverened by laws...
Natural Selection...
Survival of the fitess...
Life, birth, death....
Does not sound like doodly squat to me....



I'm not offended at anything you write. Sometimes mildly amused, but leaning more towards boredom lately.

I did not say that nature is doodly-squat, I said that does not know doodly-squat. There is a difference. Knowing implies conciousness and there is no evidence that nature possesses counciousness.

quote:
Not me who is pathetic....



<sighs, bangs head on desk>

Its the "Pathetic Fallacy". It is a Logical Fallacy. Do you know what a logical fallacy is? If I had claimed you were using the "No True Scotsman Fallacy" would you respond that you are neither Scottish nor a man? (Don't answer that.) I would provide you a link on logical fallacies but my psychic abilities tell me that it would be a waste of my time, since once again you either didn't read or didn't understand the links in my last post.

So look it up yourself...
Do the work...
Try to pay attention...

The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley

The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  13:26:38   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
Let's consider this.
Nature has a conscience.
Nature decides to kill +150,000 people out of sheer boredom.
Me? I need to have no respect for nature. Nature didn't respect me, or my friend's family in the first place? Why should I respect or worship her?

I won't.

I'd rather be marvelled that such beauty simply exists, the laws just came to be, that thinking everything's done deliberately. I'd rather stare at the enormity of the universe and consider we're worth jack squat compared to its grandiosity, that we're a mere accident (and what a lovely accident we are!) than pretend we've some meaning that, in the end, is pointless, 'cause nature knows it can destroy us anytime.

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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Storm
SFN Regular

USA
708 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  13:58:41   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Storm's Homepage Send Storm a Private Message
I do the work and pay attention...
Why does nature not have consciousness...
Because it is not like ours...
Have we taught nature what to do..
No...
It has the knowledge itself...
Within it self...
Hence Natural...
Are we accidents?
Don't you feel you want to be worth something
Just because the universe is grand and you are small in comparision does not mean you have no meaning no worth
We see how man's ways can effect the world...
So can we say we are nothing but accidents
Let us not compare natures consciousness to ours..
As with animals and plants...
Pathetic fallacy putting human emotions upon nature..
i.e. unforgiven tsnuami
Are you going to tell me that the cells that keep my body alive are not conscious
I do not mean conscience the ability to know right from wrong but the ability to be aware of how to work how to function how to survive
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard

USA
4574 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  14:42:06   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send H. Humbert a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Storm
Are you going to tell me that the cells that keep my body alive are not conscious
I do not mean conscience the ability to know right from wrong but the ability to be aware of how to work how to function how to survive


I am. Your cells are not aware of how to work, how to function, or how to survive. They are no more sentient than a locomotive engine--they just do the work, unaware of any destination or purpose.


"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman

"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie
Edited by - H. Humbert on 01/01/2005 14:42:34
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Siberia
SFN Addict

Brazil
2322 Posts

Posted - 01/01/2005 :  15:02:31   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Siberia's Homepage  Send Siberia an AOL message  Send Siberia a Yahoo! Message Send Siberia a Private Message
... or will you tell me my computer's sentient?
Then what is being sentient? What's the relevance of being sentient?
What's consciousness?
Why should I've to feel anything more than an accident?
I am worth something. For my family, for my friends. For the universe? I seriously don't think so. The sun doesn't shine just for Earth and the Earth itself doesn't seem to care that much.
Mankind's just a speck in the face of a big, big universe out there.
I think we are accidents. I think our molecules randomly assembled themselves. I think that's more miraculous than being created by some spirit or other.

"Why are you afraid of something you're not even sure exists?"
- The Kovenant, Via Negativa

"People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs."
-- unknown
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