On reincarnation of God

[Narz]

Does this stop you have any form of meaningful friendships (plutonic or romantic) with someone who is religious?

I don't think I could date someone religious.

My good friend went thru a very religious phase, he still has a cross on his car, I went to the beach w him yesterday. He's a good dude.

I understand the craving to have some simplicity & order in this crazy universe & we all make irrational conclusions along the way. I just don't see Christianity as a legitimate stopping point.

 

[Farm Boy]

A path is not a stopping point.

 

[Birdjaguar]

You did sum up why most people are atheists I think....

Except that most people are not atheists.

One thing that seems to betting lost here is that Christianity has many many different faces. YEC are just one of those faces, Unitarians are another and there are many others in between.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Valka I hope you didn't feel insulted when I gave that example about parents and kids. I admit I was assuming a normal relationship and should have stated that. In any case I truly apologize.

Apology accepted. I realize you and I haven't interacted much over the years and you wouldn't be aware of some of the personal stuff I've posted about my family.

So regarding stories, fact finding, historical records, etc. What if concrete evidence and or records were produced? Then what? Would that really change your mind regarding religion? Be honest.

The mind will always be at war with the heart. What's easy for the mind to reject may be totally acceptable to the heart. It may be necessary to change your heart in order to see things differently. It may also be necessary to change your mind. Only when the mind and the heart are at balance will one be able to truly see if they want to believe all this stuff or not.

As the saying goes: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

But if it helps, the Rainbow Bridge Poem is something I find comforting even though there's no evidence of an afterlife for our pets.

Yes, you're a great unique snowflake. Quite beautiful in your fashion.

Do I have to trot out my take on snowflakes again?

Given the right conditions, snowflakes don't melt. They freeze and build up. Over enough time, they create ice. Over more time, the ice grows thicker and spreads out over a larger area. Over still more time, this ice can become a glacier.

Glaciers can endure for tens of thousands of years, advancing and retreating as climate makes possible. They grind and chew the land they cover, and their freezing and melting changes lake and sea levels, affecting the lives and very survival of countless lifeforms.

When the glaciers retreat a significant distance, humans can see the results. Some of the most spectacular lakes and valleys and rivers in the world exist because of the advance and retreat of glaciers. Many cities' drinking water depends on glacial meltwater and have done so for centuries.

Given enough time, glaciers can remake entire continents. Pretty good results for a humble snowflake.

I wasn't expecting you (or anyone else for that matter) to watch the videos tbh. I rarely watch videos other people post on here. We all have a finite time on this Earth and I didn't want to spend an hour and a half watching the videos again, noting down the main talking points and the sources linked to them just for you to be unmoved by them. There are some interesting linguistic features and tangential archeology. However I suspect you would be wanting an independent source material for the Exodus, like there is for Assyrian's dispersement of the Hebrews, or like there is for the exile under Babylonians. Sadly the Egyptians have not provided us with this. Either because it did not happen, was not significant enough for them to record, or because we have simply not discovered it yet. Interestingly the Bible and the Egyptians do sometimes support each other, for example they are the only 2 sources we have for the Philistines (and other sea people).

The videos are well sourced (they both list their sources as they progress), but again unless you are interested in the evidence we have for Jesus existing (plentiful) or exploration into what evidence there is for the Exodus occurring (less plentiful) it is probably not worth your time.

I might give them a try. Right now, though, my documentary-watching includes the Tudor court and some Plantagenet history (research for a very long story I've been writing for close to 4 years; it started as a 50,000-word NaNoWriMo project and grew into enough material for a series).

Well if you change the subject I'm not going to have the high ground! Perhaps I misunderstood what you and Narz were asking.
I was merely trying to show how extensive the documentation for Jesus is, and how relatively contemporary it is compared to many other historical figures of the ancient and medieval times. For example Zoroaster the founder of Zoroastrianism we have almost no documentation for at all.

It's not enough to simply say Jesus existed so all the details of the New Testament must be true. I originally researched the physical effects of crucifixion because someone on a different gaming forum asked a favor one day. He was writing a Highlander story (based on the TV series) and wanted to know which method of execution used by the Romans would be the best way to give his character his original death and trigger the process that turns a Pre-Immortal into a full Immortal (and thus he would live forever unless beheaded).

So I researched the various methods - crucifixion, strangulation, and various other things (made for some cheerful reading - not - but it was very educational). The method had to be fast and violent, as slow deaths don't trigger the Immortality process. I presented a list, he picked one, wrote his story - and I found it very well-written.

One of the elements of that story he'd been worried that I wouldn't go for was the part about Jesus. The protagonist was a centurion during the late Roman Republic, and was executed for attempting to assassinate Pompey. Of course the execution doesn't result in permanent death, and he lives on. Fast-forward to the time of Jesus... and some time after the Crucifixion he encounters Jesus out in the wilderness. Jesus is upset because he had fully intended to die - but instead he'd revived and realized that he can't die.

The premise of this part of my friend's story is that Jesus was Immortal in the sense of the rest of the characters in that universe (which has nothing to do with religion, though many Immortal characters are people of various faiths). One part of Immortality is that - male or female - you cannot procreate. There will be no children, as it's impossible. You trade centuries/millennia of lifespan for the ability to bear or father children, and it's not a trade you get to decide. The Immortality process is a mutation that some people have but most don't.

What Decius (the protagonist) does to resolve Jesus' dilemma of not being able to die to fulfill the prophecy would likely be upsetting to some folks here so I won't mention it. But I will say that my friend made it fit very well into his overall story and give me something new to think about.*

*Of course this is fanfiction, and not something I believe for one moment could really have happened.

Does this stop you have any form of meaningful friendships (plutonic or romantic) with someone who is religious?

I realize this is a typo, but it's a funny one. Plutonic has to do with igneous rocks, so I suppose it's possible that Narz could have a plutonic relationship with someone if they really don't get along well... or if they're both into rock collecting.*


*Many years ago my mom's parents went to Hawaii. They asked all of us what kind of souvenir we'd like, and were flabbergasted when I asked for a piece of obsidian for my rock collection ("We're going all the way to Hawaii and you want us to bring you back a ROCK?!"). They didn't understand that obsidian isn't the sort of thing I can just pick up off the ground around here).

 

[Narz]

A path is not a stopping point.

You got a book that claims to be the truth, the whole truth & nothing but, yeah that's a stopping point.

Except that most people are not atheists.

It's the largest growing minority.

One thing that seems to betting lost here is that Christianity has many many different faces. YEC are just one of those faces, Unitarians are another and there are many others in between.

But it's still tethered to the same toxic book. There are all sorts of different Trump supporters too but that doesn't mean belief in Trump as a messaic figure is healthy.

 

[Farm Boy]

You got a book that claims to be the truth, the whole truth & nothing but, yeah that's a stopping point.

Oh? Do tell me more.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Oh? Do tell me more.

Interesting edit (I got the unedited version via email notification).

 

[Farm Boy]

Eh. Either way. But we weren't really looking to melt anything.

 

[Modder_Mode]

Interesting edit (I got the unedited version via email notification).

Eh. Either way. But we weren't really looking to melt anything.

I want to read the original post, sounds interesting

 

[TheMeInTeam]

atheism should be represented as a family of beliefs, consisting of religious ones and non-religious ones.

it isn't though. the absence of belief is not belief. not even belief of absence. atheism isn't special; it's merely applying the same principle to gods as to other things we have no evidence to support. i have the same amount of empirical evidence for gods, goblins, magical talking dogs, and humans teleporting through will alone. don't need anything special to "justify" the absence of belief in one of these. i don't observe any of them in reality, and don't see a reason to consider any of them specially. atheists don't need to prove god(s) don't exist any more than they need to prove the magical talking dogs don't exist.

ofc it's not my exact probability estimate, i think its not even close. its just my word that i still believe "god might exists" with a small chance. probability given the information i received for my whole life.
to truly estimate it, would take a great effort tho

this is why i doubt how meaningful the distinction is between "strong and weak atheism". if your probability estimate of god is similar to the talking magic dog, then your actual behavior/reasoning is almost indistinguishable from "strong" atheism. if your estimate between those two things is meaningfully different, i'd be interested to hear why it's different, what evidence makes you believe/anticipate one as more likely to be observed in the future.

but the pros of "i believe something i write" is that i just write some arbitrary number, and believe that its true. it doesn't hurt anyway.

we can all write whatever, but what i wonder about in this context is putting one's belief to the test. would you wager meaningfully different amounts of money on finding empirical evidence in favor of magic dogs vs god(s) in the next 10-20 years?

i give both of those things substantially lower than lotto ticket odds. not precisely 0 probability, because if some fey dog really does appear on my desk/teleports me back to my house i think i'd have to update my model of reality (or my mental state, or both, it would be pretty hard to grasp all the implications). but i don't expect that to happen, ever, so the probability is pretty close to 0.

to prepare my mind if it happens to be true. if god is proved to be existed, then i will adapt to the change.

this should be true for any empirical evidence presented.

i believe if god exists, god must be reasonable, must have his own reason to create the world.

while i don't see any basis to privilege a hypothesis involving god over other explanations with no evidence, i also see no reason it follows logically that god must be reasonable (by our standards) if we accept a hypothetical where god exists.

proof is existence of people who accept higher energy price to reduce fossil fuel usage for next generation's future.
if people not believing in future generations, they should have just burnt everything for their lovely luxury consumerist life.

for this section, i would like to point out that we have very good empirical basis to "believe" in future generations. namely, the same reason we exist. human utility function isn't angelic, but people also don't solely consider themselves at baseline. most people at least somewhat care about other people. some care a great deal.

You did sum up why most people are atheists I think.

i don't think this is true. case in point above, in many cases even people who acknowledge empirical evidence nevertheless hold out hope for the spiritual. frankly, i would prefer heaven to literally nothing too, similar to how i would happily accept having magical powers. these are just things i don't anticipate seeing any evidence to support their existence. but the notion that life has no "meaning" beyond what our brains conjure up, and that once you're gone it's literally just nothing...that's kind of a cold shower. i don't want it to be true. but even the longest shot alternatives (like my mentioning repeating states of atoms given infinite time earlier in this thread) have serious question marks.

some people can abandon spirituality entirely, removing faith and replacing it with nothing at all. i don't think that holds for the general population, and for that assertion the evidence is historical behavior patterns themselves and how populations behave/replace "religion" with other things that function like it at societal levels.

Does this stop you have any form of meaningful friendships (plutonic or romantic) with someone who is religious?

at least for me, it does not. i consider it a reasoning mistake, but for most people they don't tend to base meaningful decisions on that particular reasoning mistake. if anything, if they screw up in life it's probably due to some other reasoning mistake than religion, a kind that i could make too. i'm also aware they feel the same about me in this context.

since i also make reasoning mistakes of different kinds (i wish it weren't true, but well...), i'm not going to cut off otherwise good to great relationships of various types over something that makes very minimal to no practical difference in our shared experiences.

i guess it could be a sticking point if being married/arguing over how to raise kids. though i doubt i would get along with someone who is very strongly religious/devout to the point where we'd be discussing what to do with children...

Except that most people are not atheists.

i suppose it depends how you look at it. most people do seem to act based on their understanding of empirical evidence, regardless of stated belief. we can't read their thoughts, though.

i suspect a substantial % of christians/islam/etc could not tell you precisely how the world would look different under the hypothetical of god existing vs not existing...aka listing the specific things we'd expect to see differently depending on that point, holding everything else equal. in this sense, people's actions don't differ much from atheists, day to day.

but that still doesn't imply their beliefs are the same, and best i can tell atheism is still quite rare, worldwide, as it has been throughout history.

 

[citizenofdoom]

this is why i doubt how meaningful the distinction is between "strong and weak atheism". if your probability estimate of god is similar to the talking magic dog, then your actual behavior/reasoning is almost indistinguishable from "strong" atheism. if your estimate between those two things is meaningfully different, i'd be interested to hear why it's different, what evidence makes you believe/anticipate one as more likely to be observed in the future.

it's just my current approach to religious beliefs.
craft/assigning beliefs to yourself
if it's more fun to think about X then I will believe X more than Y.
if I cannot obtain evidence then I just assign beliefs.
think it in civ5 way, religion has some empty boxes/tenets
I just assign something that theoretically maximize my happiness.
---------------------------------------------
about the difference, imagine you are bored in taxi, it would be fun to hype your mind up and start a convo with them about religion.
i often obtain other religions beliefs by starting convo with random strangers.
it's fun.
if my mind is designed in a way to reject every possibility of deity's existence, I can't have fun at that time.
so its ok to "if going in a taxi, roll a dice, if yes, let's believe god exists for a while"
it's pretty weird to say (I hope you not feeling disgusting about my way of life) but I always carry dice with me.
Dice dictate most of my life's actions.
The food I eat, which shop I go to, when to study and many many things else.
It's something I practiced a year ago.
It might seem very stupid, very very stupid but it's something has been working for me, and I really proud that I found that way of life.

this is something I wrote a year + some months ago, and got heavy criticisms from others.
i tested that and felt it was good to share then having harsh comments.
since then i assign probability to as many things as I can.
i think people here are open enough and it somehow can explain to other how I act in real life so yeah, a year ago kinda a big shift in my life.
i take an experimental approach to live. i don't like listening to others teaching me "how to live".
the people around me seem failed at some points in their life, so I have to find a different approach to hope that i may be successful.
my time in taxi meeting a religious person is little compared to my lifetime, and I have to roll a dice.
it makes a little difference, as you can see.

 

[Narz]

, in many cases even people who acknowledge empirical evidence nevertheless hold out hope for the spiritual. frankly, i would prefer heaven to literally nothing too, similar to how i would happily accept having magical powers. these are just things i don't anticipate seeing any evidence to support their existence. but the notion that life has no "meaning" beyond what our brains conjure up, and that once you're gone it's literally just nothing...that's kind of a cold shower. i don't want it to be true. but even the longest shot alternatives (like my mentioning repeating states of atoms given infinite time earlier in this thread) have serious question marks.

Yeah I feel the same.

Would love to believe in afterlife or we wake up from a simulation after death, stuff like that

 

[Moff Jerjerrod]

Very interesting. So I would need more data from the community here.

Based on what TheMeInTeam and Narz recently posted could it be true then that deep down, even one who professes to be atheist, everyone has a desire or hope that in the end things will continue somehow?

My wife, who is atheist btw, always tells me that she does not want to live on forever in the afterlife. How torturous is that concept she asks me. No she hopes that once her body dies that that is it. There is no spirit or soul that goes on living.

 

[Rg339]

Very interesting. So I would need more data from the community here.

Based on what TheMeInTeam and Narz recently posted could it be true then that deep down, even one who professes to be atheist, everyone has a desire or hope that in the end things will continue somehow?

My wife, who is atheist btw, always tells me that she does not want to live on forever in the afterlife. How torturous is that concept she asks me. No she hopes that once her body dies that that is it. There is no spirit or soul that goes on living.

I don’t care.

If my end is my end, then I won’t be aware of anything, and I won’t be disappointed. If there is an afterlife and it’s pleasant, I’ll be pleasantly surprised. If there’s an afterlife and it’s horrible, I’ll be angry.

Honestly, the 3rd possibility is what I consider most concerning. Pascal’s wager and all that. I have some emotional resentment against religions that mention the possibility of a negative afterlife; I feel like this is a meme that forces me(and probably other people) to pay attention to them(I can’t really help this, it’s an emotional reaction) beyond what the actual proof demands.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Very interesting. So I would need more data from the community here.

Based on what TheMeInTeam and Narz recently posted could it be true then that deep down, even one who professes to be atheist, everyone has a desire or hope that in the end things will continue somehow?

My wife, who is atheist btw, always tells me that she does not want to live on forever in the afterlife. How torturous is that concept she asks me. No she hopes that once her body dies that that is it. There is no spirit or soul that goes on living.

I don't think you could conclude that. Many, perhaps most atheists would like it if there was some deeper meaning or significance to our lives than we feel the evidence supports, but that doesn't translate into a desire for part of us to exist for ever. Certainly not in my case.

 

[Gorbles]

Very interesting. So I would need more data from the community here.

Based on what TheMeInTeam and Narz recently posted could it be true then that deep down, even one who professes to be atheist, everyone has a desire or hope that in the end things will continue somehow?

My wife, who is atheist btw, always tells me that she does not want to live on forever in the afterlife. How torturous is that concept she asks me. No she hopes that once her body dies that that is it. There is no spirit or soul that goes on living.

I'm undecided. Mainly because we literally don't know either way. It's the great mystery, and romanticised as such in non-religious fiction and the like. Not to mention people who have suffered loss may have complicated feelings on it regardless of any faith they may or may not have (and I have been through some serious loss).

Would it be living? Would it be a transfer of consciousness? Does the spark, if it exists at all, just dissipate, or is energy preserved and merely changed into a new form? It's the whole "where does your soul go when you die", to "do we have a soul" to "what is a soul".

I certainly wouldn't be able to extrapolate this across a greater atheist community. Much like I consider faith (and especially religious faith), it tends to be based on personal qualifiers; our own journeys.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Based on what TheMeInTeam and Narz recently posted could it be true then that deep down, even one who professes to be atheist, everyone has a desire or hope that in the end things will continue somehow?

maybe a bit too far of a projection. it's more along the lines of "we want life/reality to be better than the evidence we have supports".

How torturous is that concept she asks me. No she hopes that once her body dies that that is it. There is no spirit or soul that goes on living.

that always seemed strange to me, as it's consistent with most people i know (both atheist and non-atheist). seems like when asked, most people tell me they'd not want to live forever.

given the option, i would live until the universe could no longer support interesting experiences for me, like heat death or every other sentient being gone or similar. i'm not inclined to be lying on a ball of iron somewhere asphyxiating for all eternity, so would want some kind of off switch, lol. all of this while well aware that i'd have to be immensely fortunate to make it to 2100, of course.

as for wanting afterlife...that depends on what it's like. but i consider that the religious version of the afterlife roughly as likely as any particular anime isekai that gets spammed. which is (fortunately or unfortunately depending on the afterlife in question) another one of those near-enough to 0 probability things. but would i prefer an enjoyable afterlife to nothing? sure. don't think it will happen, but by all means.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I will say this, that the art, music, poetry and architecture of the deeply religious is often well beyond that of the those who are not.

 

[Narz]

Very interesting. So I would need more data from the community here.

Based on what TheMeInTeam and Narz recently posted could it be true then that deep down, even one who professes to be atheist, everyone has a desire or hope that in the end things will continue somehow?

I would like it to keep going. Being alive is rough but it's the only game in town.

My wife, who is atheist btw, always tells me that she does not want to live on forever in the afterlife. How torturous is that concept she asks me. No she hopes that once her body dies that that is it. There is no spirit or soul that goes on living.

My last ex said basically same thing.

I will say this, that the art, music, poetry and architecture of the deeply religious is often well beyond that of the those who are not.

Lol, back in the day maybe, that's cause the church would pay your bills if you create art for the cathedrals. Draw some elephant God instead and you'll probably be killed. Draw a bowl of fruit and you probably won't have any $ for actual fruit.

What you said certainly doesn't hold true for modern times.

 

[warpus]

I never understood why a perfect being who is capable of creating something like the universe would ever require worship. If anything you'd think that such a being would not want to be worshipped.. Requiring worship points to an ego, a need for praise and approval, the need to feel superior.. Do these sound like qualities of a perfect superbeing to you or like a thing humans made up one day, because at the time their Emperors & Kings required worship as well?

Slightly off-topic now, but I was able to catch up on some posts and worship seemed to have been a topic of discussion to some degree. I just got home so I'm behind the times wrt the discussions happening in this thread, but the whole worship thing never made sense to me. If a god really exists, and he's perfect and awesome, he's going to ask me to worship him? That makes zero sense to me.

If this being was not perfect and some sort of a jealous creature instead, like the Jewish/Christian God described in the old testament.. then yeah! That makes a lot more sense.

It would totally even make sense in the context of reincarnation. "I'm a jealous god, worship me, or I won't reincarnate you into a human and you'll either die forever or come back as a frog"