Of course it surprising that we have a pot with no hole; most pots have holes. We still have to ask why does the pot have no hole? We know it must have no hole, but why were we so fortunate to get a pot with no hole? It could just be that we were very lucky or something else is going on. Something else is much more likely.

Science has yet to develop a coherent theory of consciousness and how observing a particular subatomic particle affects its behavior. Can it?

Every pot has water poured into it (life has the theoretical opportunity to develop in every possible universe), why is it surprising that the only one with water still in it is the one without a hole? It's not like there's an astonishing coincidence of water and holeless pot. Any universe could have attempted life. It only succeed in the one that was suitable for it.

In pot terms:

- It is not surprising that water is found in a pot with no hole
- But it is still surprising that the pot has no hole (when most pots have holes)

Or in universe terms:

- It is not surprising that life is found in a life supporting universe
- But it is still is surprising that the universe is life supporting (most universes are not life supporting)

These two are subtly different.

I don’t think it matters whether our universe is special or not. To me, God is a loving Presence, a Spirit akin to a Universal Consciousness that all of us can call upon for hope, peace, love, equanimity, patience, joy, and all of the loving virtues. It makes no difference how many universes there are. God is Present in all life-supporting worlds.

To me, God is a loving Presence, a Spirit akin to a Universal Consciousness that all of us can call upon for hope, peace, love, equanimity, patience, joy, and all of the loving virtues — Noah Te Stroete

I hope that is the case, but the existence of God should be inducible to a high degree and many people have trouble with the concept of faith and prefer evidence. If our universe was special, that goes someway towards arguing for God's existence. If on the other hand, there are billions of universes and we just got lucky to find one of the few that is life supporting, you would have to question whether there was any evidence for design and thus God in the multiverse.

The emotion I feel, the reason I think, the wonder and awe of looking up at the cosmos, the fact that we are conscious and not not conscious, that life and consciousness are even possible, are all the evidence I need.

Non-theistic is precisely what Atheism is. — DingoJones

Non-atheistic is precisely what theism is.

That's silly, right? Defining either theism or atheism by what they are not is simply silly.

A more useful formula is:

THEISM: Belief in the authority of holy books.

ATHEISM: Belief in the authority of human reason.

This formula is useful because we are now taken directly to an examination of each chosen authority. We can inspect and challenge the qualifications of holy books to address the very largest of questions. We can inspect and challenge the qualifications of human reason to address the very largest of questions.

Most forum atheists are clear on the need to challenge the qualifications of holy books, an entirely appropriate operation.

But when it comes to performing the exact same analysis on their own chosen authority, they typically become hopelessly confused. To be fair to forum atheists, this very same logic failure is shared by many, perhaps most, of the most prominent atheist spokesmen.

REASON: If we perform the same analysis on all chosen authorities in a even handed manner we are doing reason.

IDEOLOGY: If we challenge only the other fellow's chosen authority, and not our own, we are doing ideology.

Atheism becomes entirely pointless if it abandons reason for ideology. Without reason, atheism becomes just another kind of religious experience, and a very poor one at that. Further, there is no hope of competing with the ancient religions when it comes to ideology, for they are the masters of that realm.

The emotion I feel, the reason I think, the wonder and awe of looking up at the cosmos, the fact that we are conscious and not not conscious, that life and consciousness are even possible, are all the evidence I need. — Noah Te Stroete

To me, the most rational act for both theists and atheists is to focus on developing positive emotional experiences such as wonder and awe etc, and to forget about claims and counter claims, answers, explanations, interpretations, evidence and proof, etc.

The beliefs and counter beliefs etc are just symbols. To focus on symbols is like endlessly arguing about who wrote the best book about sex, instead of having sex.

The beliefs and counter beliefs etc are not only not necessary to reach these emotional experiences, they are counter productive. They draw our attention away from the real world in to the very much smaller realm of human thought. That's like trading a real apple for a cardboard image of an apple, not a great bargain!

Thought is not the solution. Thought is the problem. It's the inherently divisive nature of thought which creates the illusion that we are separate from reality, thus giving rise to the desire to "get back to God". Thinking about God does not accomplish the "getting back", the reunification with reality, because such a process uses the very medium which is causing the illusion of division.

To use religious language, the Apostle John so very efficiently defined God this way. "God is love." Three words! Love is not a theory, position, doctrine or counter theory, counter position, or counter doctrine. Love is an experience.

And if one doesn't believe in God, fine, no problem, and not really too relevant. The experiences of wonder, awe and love etc are still available, and what actually matters.

I don’t disagree with you completely. I just happen to believe in God through no conscious intentionality. It just happened to me. I pray to God as a form of meditation. Whatever the word “God” refers to in reality is a question I am not equipped to answer.

I hope that is the case, but the existence of God should be inducible to a high degree and many people have trouble with the concept of faith and prefer evidence. — Devans99

I'm sorry, but this is inaccurate. Very few people have any trouble with faith, they differ only in what they have faith in.

The situation is not that some people use faith while other people use reason. That's an entirely false division. Everybody uses faith.

As example, someone might like to prove for us that a single half insane semi-suicidal species only recently living in caves on one little planet in one of billions of galaxies is capable of using any process to determine the most fundamental nature of all reality, the scope of God claims. The first problem such a person will encounter is that we actually have no idea what the concept "all of reality" even refers to.

But, even in the face of such absurdity, most people will have faith that some methodology or another can deliver credible meaningful answers of some kind. They differ only in what methodology they have faith in.

Without reason, atheism becomes just another kind of religious experience, and a very poor one at that — Jake

Good point. Surely the worst religious experience ever! Listen to Dawkins and Die. I'm amazed its so popular when there are scientific alternatives to atheism (I'm a deist myself).

Personally what I find most annoying is science's use of infinity. I am a finitist so I consider belief in actual infinity to be a supernatural belief. Science has been using infinity for 100 years unchallenged, they've built models of the universe on what is basically akin to magic.

If you look at the history of science, they have got it badly wrong in the past. For example they spent at least 100 years believing in this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlogiston_theory

Right now they are probably wrong about infinity and probably wrong about the need for a creator too. It is high time that science was challenged to justify some of its irrational beliefs.

I don’t disagree with you completely. I just happen to believe in God through no conscious intentionality. It just happened to me. I pray to God as a form of meditation. Whatever the word “God” refers to in reality is a question I am not equipped to answer. — Noah Te Stroete

Ok Noah, that's cool. I'm hope I'm writing well enough that readers will understand that I'm not attempting to prove or disprove the existence of God. What I am attempting to address is the relationship between reality, and symbols that point to reality.

From a religious perspective, we can look simply and plainly at what religion is claiming, that God exists in the real world. If that is what one believes it seems the question becomes, how does one look for God where religions say that he is, in the real world? And should we conduct such an investigation, I believe we will find that the biggest obstacle to observing the real world is the very distracting noise being generated by the symbolic world between our ears.

I'm arguing that it is the experience that most matters, and what we call that experience is really not so important.

The situation is not that some people use faith while other people use reason. That's an entirely false division. Everybody uses faith — Jake

What I mean is I have no direct faith in God, I put my faith in scientific evidence and probability which lead me to believe that God may exist.

still surprising that the pot has no hole (when most pots have holes) — Devans99

Nope, still not getting it, given a billion pots, given that it is possible for one to be hole-less, why is it surprising to find that one is?

Good point. Surely the worst religious experience ever! Listen to Dawkins and Die. I'm amazed its so popular when there are scientific alternatives to atheism (I'm a deist myself). — Devans99

Thanks for your reply. Yes, a scientific alternative to atheism (and theism too) is reason. Actual reason, not ideology posing as reason.

Here's a hypothetical question to illustrate. When members are having wild sex, are you concerned with the God debate? Probably not! That's because the power of that experience makes the God debate irrelevant. Reason should be guiding us not to win the God debate, but to escape it, transcend it, make it irrelevant.

Religion is fundamentally about achieving a psychological reunification with reality. To the degree we can achieve that state of mind, we have no need of religion, or anti-religion either.

The useful question reason should be addressing is, what is it that is generating the experience of being divided, separate, alone?

What I mean is I have no direct faith in God, I put my faith in scientific evidence and probability which lead me to believe that God may exist. — Devans99

Ok, thanks for clarifying, that's an interesting twist on the faith experience.

still surprising that the pot has no hole (when most pots have holes)
— Devans99

Nope, still not getting it, given a billion pots, given that it is possible for one to be hole-less, why is it surprising to find that one is? — Ciaran

The only reason we are able to question pots with holes and hole-less pots is because we are in a hole-less pot. That doesn’t in itself make us special.

Nope, still not getting it, given a billion pots, given that it is possible for one to be hole-less, why is it surprising to find that one is? — Ciaran

Maybe a slightly different analogy:

Assume there are a billion possible pot designs, only one of which had no holes. Then we find the only pot that exists in fact has no holes. It must have no holes to hold the water but Is it just luck that we got the one with no holes or is something else going on?

Or assume a billion possible universe designs, only one of which is life supporting. We must be in a live supporting universe but are we there just because we got lucky or was the universe designed to be life supporting? The chances we got lucky are a billion to 1 so the universe is almost certainly designed.

Put it this way, the statement 'the universe must be life supporting' (anthropic principle) in no way answers the question 'why is the universe life supporting?' if you see what I mean.

Reason should be guiding us not to win the God debate, but to escape it, transcend it, make it irrelevant. — Jake

How can we escape this debate though? Our prime directive is survival and that directive extends beyond the grave and into the realm of a potential God. I'm not sure it's possible to stop talking about it until we have some answers; that would be going against a basic instinct.

How can we escape this debate though? Our prime directive is survival and that directive extends beyond the grave and into the realm of a potential God. I'm not sure it's possible to stop talking about it until we have some answers; that would be going against a basic instinct. — Devans99

Well, let's see. Hmm...

First thing to come to mind is that most people have already escaped this debate, more or less. Most atheists never give the matter a thought, and even those who attend a church are typically not that ideological.

It's surely true that we have a basic instinct to try to know things. It doesn't follow for me that therefore we are required to try to know things for which there is really little evidence that a knowing is possible. This may boil down to whether we view philosophy as a means to an end, or as an end in itself.

This is just another theory, but it's not clear to me that survival is really our prime directive. I look at our deepest goal as being more a matter of reunification, liberation from the experience of division and separation. To me, just one view, it doesn't really matter whether we frame that goal as reuniting with a God, or with a vast mechanical reality. What matters in my view is whether we have the experience we are seeking. To the degree that we have that experience, it seems to me that the question of what we are uniting with loses it's importance. As example, while we're having great sex our opinions about sex tend to fade away.

But, your point is taken. It's surely true that some of us will never be able to stop talking about God, he said, while typing his 100,000th post on the subject. :smile:

It must have no holes to hold the water but Is it just luck that we got the one with no holes or is something else going on? — Devans99

We can't have got "the one" with no holes if it's "the only one that exists" in order to be surprised we got this one it can only be because there were a number of other options. If there are other options, then how do we know the status of life on them? It could be they all have life because universes suitable for life are inevitable (no surprises), or it could be that no others have life because life was tried on all of them but it failed owing to unsuitable conditions.

What it can't be is what you seem to be implying, that life is sitting somewhere outside of the universe waiting to be allocated a universe to exist in and, what good luck, it happens to be allocated the one with suitable conditions.

We know if we make small changes to the standard model and a number of other parameters that life is no longer possible. These are the alternative universes to which I refer - hypothetical possible universes with different configurations that are not life supporting. There are many more non-life supporting configurations than there are life supporting configurations. So we have to question if it was just luck that our universe was life supporting or whether it was designed to be live supporting. The weak anthropic principle explains that the universe must be live supporting but it does not explain whether it was luck or design. Design is much more probable.

The weak anthropic principle explains that the universe must be live supporting but it does not explain whether it was luck or design. Design is much more probable. — Devans99

I would say that it was inevitable given so many universes.

The overwhelming vast majority of atheists arrived at their position through reference to human reason. — Jake

That may be the case, but since someone who lacks a belief in gods but who came to that view via another means is still an atheist, we don't include the motivational background in the definition. That the position was arrived at via reason is not a necessary component of atheism, as common as that may be.

That may be the case, but since someone who lacks a belief in gods but who came to that view via another means is still an atheist, we don't include the motivational background in the definition. — Terrapin Station

In the real world, the overwhelming vast majority of the time, what other means??

I said "that may be the case" (that "the overwhelming vast majority of atheists arrived at their position through reference to human reason"), but that's not a necessary criterion for atheism.

You're retreating in to quibbling. In your defense, that's completely normal, seen it a thousand times.

We can observe how forum atheists will do the dictionary definition dance all day long, but we somehow never get around to challenging the qualifications of the authority their atheism is built upon.

That's not reason. That's ideology.

challenging the qualifications of the authority their atheism is built upon. — Jake

I'm not sure what that is referring to.

My atheism is primarily built on the fact that I was never socialized into religion. So by the time i was exposed to religious beliefs in any detail they just seemed--as they still do--completely absurd to me.

I don't know what it would amount to to challenge that.

I'm not sure what that is referring to. — Terrapin Station

Exactly.

My atheism is primarily built on the fact that I was never socialized into religion. So by the time i was exposed to religious beliefs in any detail they just seemed--as they still do--completely absurd to me. — Terrapin Station

Ok, that's fine, no problem. I hope you understand I'm not trying to make you be a theist, but rather trying to help you be more loyal to your own chosen methodology, reason.

Religious beliefs seem absurd to you for a reason. That didn't happen magically out of nothing. You referenced your chosen authority, human reason, and discovered that many religious beliefs don't pass the tests required by human reason. And so you find those beliefs to be, in your words, absurd.

What you appear not to have done is apply the very same test to the authority of human reason that you reasonably apply to holy books, the theist's chosen authority. That's my complaint, not that you have declined theism.