Cropping your post because I want to focus just on this one piece.



I think that the gratitude (or thankfulness) implies a relationship. Those are inner qualities or emotions that we typically express via outward actions or words. So how do you express your gratitude for all the things in the Universe or do you feel any need to express what you feel via your actions at all? If you express them in words, who is the listener?

Voof. Those are profound questions that I'm sure most people could write books worth of sentiments on. Despite what our friend subgenius asserts, I think humility can be an innate human attribute that has arisen from cooperative relationships and existential needs being met. This:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humility

demonstrates that humility itself is emergent and expressed throughout a variety of cultures and philosophical thought.

To your questions:

"So how do you express your gratitude for all the things in the Universe or do you feel any need to express what you feel via your actions at all?"

I do feel the need quite often, and that can admittedly be because of how I was raised. It could also just be a part of my fundamental makeup. My mother, when I was a child, used to remark often enough that I had a kind heart and a good nature. Perhaps some people are just imbued with a predisposition toward gratitude and a lack of arrogance, which I think create a sense of humbleness. Not totally sure.

As to how I do it? Honestly it varies from moment to moment. I know it's founded in mindfulness and focus, though. Stopping to smell the roses, and then focusing in on the moment to observe the miracle of the rose creates awe and then is itself a catlyst toward humility. You do that often enough you realize soon enough how everything is essentially beauty and art, despite an absence of fundamental meaning. The universe is an endless expanse to be discovered and honored.

"If you express them in words, who is the listener?"

You know. Sometimes I think this reality is a simulation, and I talk to my mother who may be on the other side of it. Sometimes I revert to the sense there is a god and I discuss the moment with it. Sometimes I think the universe is a totality and I emote toward it or whisper something in case it's aware. Sometimes, well, most of the time, I think this reality is what it is, and I think think good thoughts or think good words and send them on their way into the ether. Whatever the case may be, and whatever the ultimate nature of this reality is, I still feel various virtues and I feel a need to act upon them in my own way.

Did this address your questions? I know get irritated when I ask specific questions from board members and they gloss over them, so I hope I gave you an adequate response.

- Doc

You've got to be kidding me. You can't believe this.

Yes, humility and gratitude as virtues do not and did not exist outside of (western) Christian cultures.

This is Dinesh Souza level stupidity.

I think there are a few ways that evolutionary theory threatens people's belief in God while remaining technically consistent with it.

1) One of the most popular ways people think their belief in God is justified is the teleological argument. While that reasoning fails apart from the existence of evolutionary theory, evolution tends to give people a really compelling basis to reject that reasoning. Arguments from ignorance are especially bad when the ignorance doesn't even have to be the case.

2) People's specific religious beliefs are inconsistent with evolutionary theory being correct. Once they are separated from their specific religious worldview, belief in other religions, even ones relatively close to their current beliefs, seems less compelling.

3) Evolution provides a lot of very compelling examples of the argument from evil. You don't need evolution to understand the argument evil. It's totally unnecessary. But, for whatever reason, it really hits with some people in the context of evolution. Arguments to "bad design" don't work as refutations of generic design arguments, but they do make for compelling illustrations of arguments from evil. Once people understand the rube goldberg nature of evolutionary adaptation and the sub-optimal outcomes it creates from the perspective of absolute benevolence, people ask themselves questions like "what kind of designer would do this?" with the answer being, "One quite unlike the God I believe in."

I'll admit that I'm both amazed and disgusted at this statement. But perhaps I'm misinterpreting. Please elaborate, subgenius.

Hey Cam this isn't a response to your reply. You're not going to get a reply to that until I feel like I've had time to give it a good think. But, I will eventually reply to it.

I want to state my motivations. I'm never in a debate with Atheists over the existence of God. My thinking being that if God exists, and according to my Christian teaching and how I live Christianity, God is going to reveal him/her/itself to a person and doesn't need me to do it.

Part of this has to do with finding out how you (or other atheists) think about things and developing further my own self awareness. For example, I think there may be a way to think about humility and gratitude that has nothing to do with a belief in a higher power but since I'm oriented to God belief, I have no experience with it and want to hear how atheists think and see the world. I'll try to work some of this into the reply that I make to your post above.

It's a little difficult to work through some of that on this board because while I've seen many a "no God needed" post over the years, most of you started out as God believers and so you presumably started right about where I did. If that makes sense...

I picked you because your post opened the door and the few times I have posed questions to you regarding belief or non-belief, your replies have always resulted in a thoughtful exchange of ideas and not a debate.

So that's why I replied with inquiry to your post!

I think this is a wonderful point. If you are grateful for something, thankful, then you are usually grateful to a someone or a something thing.

If nothing else, gratitude communicates to your own brain, which will in turn creates more pathways to please you.

I fail to understand how you can still hold to the position that the evolution of sexual reproduction is utterly preposterous after viewing the links I provided. Did you actually watch those videos? It doesn't seem like you did, or that you made any honest attempt to understand them if you did.


Based on the videos I provided, I definitely would not agree with that. This again reinforces my doubt that you actually watched them or tried to honestly understand what they were saying.

This would be a preposterous interpretation of what was presented in those videos. There need not have been any conscious or deliberate decision or intention involved for this to have happened occasionally; just as there is almost certainly no conscious intention involved when genetic material is occasionally exchanged between bacteria in close contact with each other, sometimes even between bacteria of different species, which is known to happen.

Again, did you actually watch those videos? They made clear that perfectly matched male and female sexual organs were not an absolute requirement for successful reproduction to occur, though they would obviously increase the odds. Certainly there would be random variations in the closeness of the match, and the more closely matched variations would have a greater rate of success and would naturally become predominant over time.

As far as I can tell, these are flat, unsupported assertions on your part with no support other than your desperation to find any excuse you can to avoid having to alter what you desperately would rather believe.


Evidence presented in the videos I linked you to indicates otherwise.


No, I don't agree. Again, I have to wonder if you bothered to look at the links I provided. In particular, they pointed out that pregnancy has been known to occur even in humans by sperm spraying or falling only on a woman's external genitalia, with no actual copulation involved. This is rare, but it does sometimes happen. Sperm can be remarkably resilient and determined to reach its goal if it gets close enough to find its way to the vaginal opening.

I really admire and appreciate your perception on this point. I think you would agree with me that our mutual friend, the scientist Craig Criddle, though an atheist, is one of the humblest, most compassionate and appreciative people on earth. We both have learned much from him, and despite his own great learning and intelligence, he acknowledges and appreciates insight he has gained even from us.

The bottom line for me on this issue is that evidence for evolution is strong enough to convince me that whether or not there is a God, evolution is almost certainly a fact. I don't claim to know with certainty whether or not there is any such thing as God, but I am far more confident that evolution works as claimed than I am that belief in God works. There has been far too much nonsense, injustice and atrocity perpetrated in the name of God and religion through the ages for me to have any confidence in religion beyond the obvious wisdom and benefits of striving to treat others as one would like to be treated, which is the one thing on which all respectable religions seem to agree. I don't need belief in God to figure that out for myself.

It's a very common evangelical apologetic to argue that the existence of common virtues or advances in human understanding such as science are dependent on a specific Christian cultural context and atheists only can enjoy them by being parasitic upon it. These are done with varying levels of sophistication with subs comment here being on the low end. They're all painfully stupid, but some at least go through the trouble of having a superficial sheen to them.

Take some aspiring evangelical apologist armed with a Ph.D. and aiming for a Templeton prize, hit him over the head with a hammer, and you get subs assertion.

To be fair to someone who rejects evolution of species from common ancestry as subbie does, he's left with little else to explain the world as he sees it other than the gods, fickle as they are, give and take away as they please. It's an interesting demonstration of how a person beginning from a certain position with hand-me-down beliefs, such as there being a sort of Ur-religion in the form of God having taught Adam directly, is essentially rendered blind to evidence and the broader scope of human history.

Now, SPG might get pleasure out of this comment, wishing to point out that it is exactly what he's been saying regarding the blind spots caused by assuming the views of a more materialistic, science-fixated parent culture. And he might insist his claim of being open to alternative views is an intellectual virtue precisely because it means every path should theoretically be available to him such that REAL TRUTH or the world of perfect forms is more available to him than to others who aren't open to the broadest selection of available theories. To which I would suggest Lewis Carroll be given consideration:

My First is singular at best:
More plural is my Second:
My Third is far the pluralest -
So plural-plural, I protest
It scarcely can be reckoned!

My First is followed by a bird:
My Second by believers
In magic art: my simple Third
Follows, too often, hopes absurd
And plausible deceivers.

My First to get at wisdom tries -
A failure melancholy!
My Second men revered as wise:
My Third from heights of wisdom flies
To depths of frantic folly.

My First is ageing day by day:
My Second's age is ended:
My Third enjoys an age, they say,
That never seems to fade away,
Through centuries extended.

My Whole? I need a poet's pen
To paint her myriad phases:
The monarch, and the slave, of men -
A mountain-summit, and a den
Of dark and deadly mazes -

A flashing light - a fleeting shade -
Beginning, end, and middle
Of all that human art hath made
Or wit devised! Go, seek HER aid,
If you would read my riddle!

It’s very much a two-dimensional view of the world he lives in. And he’ll take his crippled point of view and hold it up as if it is somehow smarter than all of the other things he simply refuses to consider or understand.

I don’t even think there’s a semi-rational way to support his POV, but subs likes to dabble in irrationality. I think that he has tried to defend it in threads prior, and failed.

Ceebs, no thoughts on this?

Better late than never, I say!



I had no idea how complex a question I was asking until I read your link and I am sure that's only the tip of the iceberg. I'll admit that I skipped over most of the religious content though I was interested in Buddhism and Taoism (no clue why) and near the end, I forced myself to read Nietzsche but only because I'm somewhat familiar with who he is/what he has written and I wanted to keep myself from gravitating to what is most comfortable to me. People do not give me near enough credit for my willingness to intentionally jam intellectual toothpicks under my fingernails to reach the other side of what I personally think and believe.


Here I think you are aligning yourself with this from the link:

Humility, in various interpretations, is widely seen as a virtue which centers on low self-preoccupation, or unwillingness to put oneself forward, so it is in many religious and philosophical traditions, it contrasts with narcissism, hubris and other forms of pride and is an idealistic and rare intrinsic construct that has an extrinsic side.



You all never see my personal writings. Particularly those about how I feel when I'm near the ocean. Though there is one post in Terrestrial where I did eek out on that limb in full public view. It's near identical to what you wrote using the rose as an example and the magnitude of the universe.

Here, you say that you believe or think that (in part) the universe is to be honored. I don't know how to honor something where there is no reciprocal relationship in place. In my mind, there has to be a giver and that, I think, is the greatest difference between my own thinking and that of a person who is atheistic.

I can well imagine a universe without a god that caused it. I can't fully grasp feelings or expressions of gratitude without that involving a giver that I am grateful to. I can't say that I understand how to be grateful to the universe. I can say that I'm grateful for the universe, but in my mind that implies a giver to be grateful to.

I've read your comments to that effect.



I do the same thing and not just with my mother. I don't know if it is because we cannot fathom them not existing or that we simply take a chance that they do continue to exist. This isn't in keeping with Biblical teachings, but I talk to the deceased quite frequently as if they continue to be part of my world. It's almost like breaking the fourth wall when I do it.



That right there puts me in mind of Karen Armstrong's History of God and what she says about the Sky God. Whether there exists a god in some form or another, a higher power of simply the forces of the Universe, what this tells me is that the notion of something higher and/or outside of ourselves is fully human.

I can't know if that is a carry over from your previous religious belief or not. So far as I am concerned, it simply is what you sense some times.




I can't make myself get there in my head. I can't make myself send thoughts on their way without imagining a receiver.



Because your mother was right about you.



Yes it did. I also think that I unknowingly posed a question the answer(s) to which are so complex and cumbersome as to make it an impossible exchange on a message board.

I want to make an observation. It seems to me that you are an atheist who leaves room open to the possibility of something "out there" and are willing to take a chance now and then, to try to communicate with it in some way. If that is the case, you are a rare atheist at least in my experience.

Before you all ever laid eyes on this screen name of mine, I spent approximately 10 years engaging atheists and allowing myself to be engaged by them. You're more candid than most in your comments. In my eyes, your ability to make yourself vulnerable is one of your greatest strengths.

It was always a case of all or nothing. "See? No god needed!" (That's a direct quote). Okay fine. But I do think that humans are wired to seek relationships and you can call that survival based biology or a necessary product of evolution or whatever you want to call it, I just do think we're wired to relationships. Of course I think that. My entire orientation is about relationships and behavior patterns. I don't deny that I might have a blind spot on account of it.

Thank you for letting me interview you and answering my questions without condescension or mockery. If it snows again and I have power, I think I might want to take this up again with you.

Yes, he is exactly who you say he is. I would be less than honest if I didn't admit that there are times that I'd like to have another go at you, Craig and JAK all at the same time again or let you have a go at me, twenty years later and see what came of it.

But, I'm afraid you all ruined me for life.

:-)

So Chap, at your recommendation, I got this book, went through it over the weekend.

It doesn't say anything that I haven't said here, which is perspectives change over time. I'm familiar the old cults the Stoics and the Atoms, a little. A lot of our philosophy was sort of hashed out by these guys and I think that we leaned towards the Stoics, even though as a cult, they died out.

While some things seemed really familiar and relatable, other things (spoken with the same conviction) were just completely wrong. Some things, key points, I think are still used today that I think is wrong. Another old group, Sanskrit, also had a "nature of things" sort of text. I like theirs more on some points. In stead of "atoms" they had a "primary substance" which I think speaks to some beliefs I had. What they called Akasha (primary substance) sound more like a quantum stuff, something so sensitive it records all things.

But the point, we think something and we realize that we are wrong. His take on the some of the substances, like spirit and identity, I think is wrong and there are many possibilities based on new data that we have. Like, 97% of our universe is in a "higher quantum" dimension. We explain this by imagining that a neutrino being so small that it can shoot through our planet, between the atoms and electrons and never hit anything.

Energy in a high dimension is maybe the same sort of things, like electrons and protons, but more energized. Their vibration is so tight, it almost doesn't exist in our universe. They still have mass, I guess, but we cannot see them or really detect them.

What we consider soul and spirit can easily exist in energy form we simply cannot see with our instruments. I don't say, "cannot see," because there are millions of accounts where people have seen.

Do you have a reference to 97% of our universe being in a higher quantum dimension? How are neutrinos an explanation for this? And isn’t it true that neutrinos can pass through the earth?

Wanna bet that he does?



Erm, the point in suggesting that you should read this 2,000 year old book was not that you should think of its author as some kind of competitor for whatever prize it may be that you are going in for ...