Alternate Explanation of Life - We Have No Choice

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Why not ?
Millions believe in God yet he/she/it, is an imaginary impossible concept.

Yup, and you’re just as wrong when you do it as they are. Maybe even more wrong since after reading this past post, I now know that you know better.

What I said is you can’t create a “theory”, based upon an imagined concept, which is false, truthfuly. What I really meant was, one cannot create a usable theory based upon imagined concepts which in the end, cannot be proven false or true, or even for which an experiment may be produced to test that validity.
Maybe that isn’t even said right. I think however, that you know what I’m saying. The idea you’re thinking on, is the same one that many of us struggle with as phylosophers. In fact, predetermination of events, with regard to free will and time travel, was a subject that my brother and I were just discussing last weekend.
Until we can even prove that time travel is possible, extrapolating upon the basis that it can, is not worthwhile, beyond the simple self enjoyment of mental masterbation.

At least my concepts are bound buy the laws of physics, not some story book full of funny little tails…. aka The Bible.

And until scientific tests have proven or disproven something, everything is an imaginary concept.

sort of… but I know what you mean none the less.

Egypitions used to worship the sun, because they didn’t know any better. Now that seems stupid to us.
Maybe they did. I’m not entirely sure the established theories on their so called “sun” worship are not misinterpreted.

Tribes used to sacrifice virgins to the volcano gods, now that seems totally stupid.
Sure, now we just sacrifice them to the gods “Britney”, and “Justin”.

The best thing the writer of the bible did was come up with an immaterial God that can never be disproved.
Or the worst thing. They could not, at the time, imagine that a methodology such as science would come along and ruin it all one day. Having something which is unlikely, and not disprovable is not nearly as good as having something which is likely correct through a series of proofs.

People believe in God based on the bible and the stories in it.
When I was a kid exposed to the bible in school, I couldn’t help but laugh my *** off. God, Santa, Ester bunny, Tooth fairy……
Just what are you trying to say about the Easter bunny?

I mean, take a look at 3 of the well known stories……
Noah’s Ark, the tower of babble, Adam and eve

Noah collected all the animals and put them on his boat and saved them…… I mean no one could honestly be stupid enough to believe this. Even today we haven’t discovered all the animals that our out there, how could he collect 2 of them all. Even if he could, the size of the boat needed to hold them all would need to be the size of the titanic…. Then how much food would all these animals need ?
The ark was built with God’s specifications, which was good cause Noah needed to build an extradimensional space within the confines of the boat. See Dr Who for a visual example of spacial distortions.

OK, so Noah’s ark never happened, its just a silly Story….
oh no… it has to be real. It was in the book. Thousands of witness’ came by to laugh at Noah so we know it’s coroborated cause their witness of it is in the book too. (<–sarcasm alert!!)

Adam and Eve ?
All I can say is have you heard of genetics ? Darwinism ? DNA ?
these are just really good lies by Satan. You shouldn’t listen to a word of these devil worshipers.

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*Originally posted by bamb0006 *
**Why not ?
Millions believe in God yet he/she/it, is an imaginary impossible concept.

I am happy to burn in hell for my blasphemy, I need a tan anyway… **

I don’t think you do your arguments any credit when you just make such blanket statements as that… (the first one)

and r.e the second, have you ever thought that if there is a hell, and you go there, that it might not be the tanning opportunity you think it is…

when it’s described as “eternal d4mnation” that’s what it means, not just something a bit bad for a bit… it means that for eternity (which is of course longer than anyone can comprehend) you will be in more pain, both physical and mental that can ever be even closely experienced on earth - not a place i want to be.

but with all this aside, i must agree with legoman’s ideas on the subject. Even if someone’s actions was looked at in the future, it doesn’t mean that they didn’t decide that course of action. Imagine what would happen if people just stop making decisions… life would be so random and lack direction. And legoman is right in that we still make the decision, it’s just that theoretically it could be seen that that’s the decision… so you could argue that it doesn’t matter what we choose, but it does - it’s just that anyone who was able to see our future would see the fruits of everything that played a part in the decision we made…

i can’t really explain properly, and i must agree that it’s one of those thoughts that’s been had by countless ppl before, all with no conclusions, but i just wanted to add my bit

peace out
Stu

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upuaut

Your post cracked me up…

And I am gonna steal your “mental masterbation” and stick in with my box with “verbal Diarrhea”.

Until we can even prove that time travel is possible, extrapolating upon the basis that it can, is not worthwhile, beyond the simple self enjoyment of mental masterbation.

I posed this question to one of my university philosophers in front of the class. Philosophers are a pointless?

If we exterminate ever single philosopher on the planet, nothing will change. Life will continue to go on as it is now.
If we were to kill all scientists, society will never change from where it is now, no more technological or medical improvements.

He didn’t have a response to that……

I don’t believe that time travel is possible, I don’t believe that time exists. Time is a construct that we have created for us to measure things.

If one was to use this as an example:
You take off from earth fly around the moon and land in 30min’s.
Now you do this faster and faster till you only take a milli second.

Now eventually you will get to a point, that the moment you have left you have returned. Even if you could then do it 100 times faster, it wouldn’t make a difference, you wouldn’t get there before you have left (go back in time). Because you can’t get back, until you have left.

We all say the universe started with a big bang, but then what was there before the moment of the big bang.
Something had to have been there even if it was just empty space…
So how did the empty space get there ?

The only answer is that it always has been there an always will be there. Therefore since it has always existed, there is no such thing as time. It just always has and always will be.

Therefore time does not exist, it is just a concept we have created to measure what we believe is time passing.

It’s always comes down to how you look at things, and what is your perspective. Standing on the beach looking to the horizon the Earth looks flat. Hop in the space shuttle and the Earth soon looks round. If we were to keep going and look down upon our entire universe, who knows how it would look.

So is there such a thing as time ? To us there sure seems like there is, but we have a very limited view to make our references from.

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I’m with you Bamb… my posts were mostly a little tongue in cheek humor. I get where you’re coming from and agree whole heartedly. As I said… it may be mental masterbation which in truth, may be a waste of time. I do it all the time none the less. If it weren’t for mental masterbation it’s unlikely that man would have come up with a concept as interesting as democracy, or the screw pump, or preservation of fire through tinderboxes. Each new idea was probebly pretty crazy when it was introduced… some people might have even said it was a waste of time. Of course now we see the import of such thought.

sorry stu but I got to defend my main man bamb.

Why not ?
Millions believe in God yet he/she/it, is an imaginary impossible concept.

What exactly is “blanket” about this statment, that it is an impossible concept?

Millions do believe in God. It is an imaginary and impossible concept. Even if that is found to be false in the future. Science is only done justice when we put aside preconseptions for that which can be proven through experimentation. Any statement other than the above would have been the injustice to his arguements. Since God cannot be proven, and no experiment can be devised that would prove possative, but which could return a negative, scientists MUST assume the default possition that there is no God or they are doing the injustice to their chosen field.

secondly

and r.e the second, have you ever thought that if there is a hell, and you go there, that it might not be the tanning opportunity you think it is…
when it’s described as “eternal d4mnation” that’s what it means, not just something a bit bad for a bit… it means that for eternity (which is of course longer than anyone can comprehend) you will be in more pain, both physical and mental that can ever be even closely experienced on earth - not a place i want to be.

One who supresses his true beliefs out of fear of the unknown is hardly even worth conversing with. I’m with bamb… I’ll be saving him a place on the rack. We will hurt, but we can be assured that we never waivered from the logical course, our GOD given brain has led us to. God gave us a brain to use it. You’re statements smack of the idea that ignorance is fine as long as it’s a strong enough fear that one is rebelling against. If god had wanted you to be ignorant he never would have given you a brain in the first place.

I can’t explain it better than that, and I’m sure some people will smack me around for those comments but heck with it. That whole principal just irks the heck out of me.

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Upuaut

I have long seen religion like this.

Those who are ignorant and believe in the Bible because they are to uneducated to understand science.

Those weak who understand the science but need a pillow to get through life. The thought that there is a God watching over them and they will go to heaven instead of back to the dirt.

Those who are on the fence, they know the Bible sounds silly, but they don’t want to say they don’t believe just incase they are wrong.

Those who don’t believe, they understand and embrace science and are fine with living out the little life they get and going back to the dirt.

Its funny, when you disagree with people who are religious they tell you that you will burn in hell…… I mean hello, we don’t believe in hell so you got to come up with something better than that.

The one thing I find funny.
When I die, and I am just a dead carcass in the ground, I wont have the satisfaction of knowing that I was right !

And the people that do believe, won’t have the pain of knowing they wasted their whole lives believing in something that doesn’t exist.

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Though he to his credit he did not say that we were going to burn in hell, just that we would likely regret our situation if we found ourselves there. I know where he’s coming from, but I believe I will be happy being punished. I would rather be punished by an evil dictator, than subjugate to one out of fear. My satisfaction in knowing I’m doing the right thing will carry me through for at least the first thousand years or so. After that I’m sure I’ll have devised a plan with Einstein and Tesla to create a dimensional portal which we will all use to escape. Either that or I’ll throw in with Lucifer since I tend to agree with his principals to a greater degree than any idea God has come up with.

In my mind the story of Adam and Eve is very telling. God doesnt’ want man to eat of the tree of knowledge of life and death. (selfishness: he desires to keep his creation ignorant so that they will worship him and his ego.) Lucifer frees man by allowing him the choice to worship or not. Lucifer never states that he wants worship. In fact, the only things that we hear from Lucifer are from God’s perception of the situation.

It’s promethius all over again. (and probebly was largely stolen from that myth IMO).

Maybe the choice between Lucifer and God is so easy to make because we are conditioned by God to believe that Lucifer is a liar. If we look at the story of Zeus and Promethius however, pretty much every man alive would empathize with Promethius, not Zeus.

The one thing I find funny.
When I die, and I am just a dead carcass in the ground, I wont have the satisfaction of knowing that I was right !

except that you know you’re right now… so have a little satisfaction. (I know I know…a lack of god is just as unprovable as it’s existance… It’s a joke people. )

I missed that part about killing off philosophers before. Very funny. A good philosophy teacher should have given you some extra credit for a statement like that. Being a philosopher I can both laugh and cry at that statement.

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Yeah he didn’t say burn in hell or imply anything of the sort.

But most people seem to take things personally these days. Don’t people know the art of debate?

One person states their arguments, then you tear there arguments down, and give them your argument back and it goes on back and forth until there is a winner.

People these days are either to stupid to put up an intelligent argument, or see it as a personal attack and flame you.

I am happy for people to tell me I am wrong, I like it even better when they tell me why I am wrong. That way I can understand their logic and see if I can find flaws in it.

I personally find a great deal of satisfaction in being found wrong, I would rather have someone prove me wrong. Then go around thinking something that isn’t right.

Philosophers…… Everyone who asks themselves a question is a philosopher, but I can’t see any pointing becoming a professor of it. At the end of your life you may have come up with some beautiful theories but they all amount to nothing until a scientist comes along, does the real work, and either proves or disproves it.

Philosophers came before scientists; they created the different branches of science. I think at this point they should have picked a field, rather than spend their life in a state of “mental masturbation”

Ha ha ha “mental masturbation” I put it to use already !

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I think that their purpose is to open up closed minds to the past theories so that hopefuly one of those minds will develope a new one. I dont’ think it’s a waste of time… though tedious to be sure.

Philosophers came before scientists; they created the different branches of science. I think at this point they should have picked a field, rather than spend their life in a state of “mental masturbation”

roflmao… that’s rich…

you know… the really funny thing was… in my first post I came across condescending. I was in fact, poking fun at myself. Unfortunately I often fail to display that well enough in posts… sounds like I’m an ***. The fact is, my brother and I really were having this exact same convo last week. Last week I proposed to him your arguement. The post I gave back to you is the arguement he used against me. It was all very humorous in my mind… I just realize now that it was incomprehensible to anyone except me.
Anyway… I was picking on myself by picking on you. Sorry about that.

The enigma of time travel, vs free will is a fascinating line of thinking. It puts a whole new spin on the matter that before this point in time I could only demonstrate with an idea of God (all knowing).

Anyway…it’s been fun chatting with you. If you like, send me an IM and I’ll throw you a link to a nice community were you may find some good educational material to read. I know I learned a lot going there.

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Oh, and if I ever found myself standing at the pearly gates.

I would ask for directions to hell… Any god that would let their be all the suffering that there is in the world…. I wouldn’t want to know….

Standing there with the choice of heaven or hell, knowing that I would have an eternity of suffering if I choose hell…. I would still choose hell, as I am a man of principle.

Incidentally, I had a causal position for the last 2 years that earned me about $30,000Au a year.
But the manager would never fill in the time cards correctly.
I eventually got sick of this and told them I wanted my $3000 in unpaid wages, they said no and I quit.
I gave up a $30,000 part-time job, over $3,000…… Do I feel stupid, yes…. But I am a man of principles, and once I had brought it up with upper management I couldn’t allow myself to continue working there.

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Anyway… I was picking on myself by picking on you. Sorry about that.

What ???

I never saw you picking on me…

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Your fundamental reasoning is flawed in your first post bamb. You cannot simply “resolve” the uncertainty principle. That’s like trying to resolve a speed faster than light. It is the uncertainty principle that gives the possiblility for freedom of choice. The fact that you don’t know any better than god him/her/itself where the little electrons and what-have-yous in my brain are, or where they are going, gives the possibility of random, unpredictable behavior.

I chose to go to Burger King instead of KFC. Beef > Poultry

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You cannot simply “resolve” the uncertainty principle.

That’s like trying to resolve a speed faster than light.

Why cannot the uncertainty principle be solved ?
We may not have the math’s or psychics to solve it today, that doesn’t mean it can’t be solved.

They used to say that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light…….

I never believed this for the simple reason of, I can’t see there being some magical force in the universe that will turn around and say “Sorry, you can’t get from a to b that fast” and put a speed break on you.

DO you still believe that the speed of light is a set limit ? They have done experiments where light has traveled faster than the “speed of light”.
I think they have also done experiments where they have stopped light and it behaves like a liquid.

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We should make a thread and list all the things humans said couldn’t be done, and then was done.

Sound Barrier ?

Hmmm… After cheesy crust pizza came out, I said to myself this is it, they cheesest a pizza can get, now we have cheese in the base of the pizza…… Please, Please God of pizza have them combine the to !

Warning: excess consumption of cheese may cause constipation….

I can live with that !

[system]

*Originally posted by bamb0006 *
**
I never believed this for the simple reason of, I can’t see there being some magical force in the universe that will turn around and say “Sorry, you can’t get from a to b that fast” and put a speed break on you.
**

Nothing waves a magic wand and pulls you back to Earth when you jump in the air. Do you question that gravity is always there pulling? Gravity like anything else in nature is ruled by a constant at some level. Just like there is a constant for electric charge of an electron, or the permitivity of space. I would imagine you accept these other constants as a fact of life, but you question light being a speed limit?

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When constants are not constant
Physics in Action: October 2001

The recent finding by an international team of astronomers that the fine-structure constant has increased over time may support the idea that the universe has extra dimensions.

In the movie The Meaning of Life, the Monty Python team reminds us that we live in “an amazing and expanding universe”. Ever since the startling evidence for cosmic expansion was discovered in the 1920s, physicists have considered the possibility that the **so-called constants of nature - such as the charge on the electron and the gravitational constant - are not constant and may, in fact, vary with time. **

In the late 1960s, George Gamow suggested that the charge on the electron, e, may vary rather than gravity. More precisely, he considered a variation in the fine-structure constant, a = e2/h-bar c, where h-bar is the Planck constant divided by 2 pi and c is the speed of light. The fine-structure constant is the gauge-coupling constant in quantum electrodynamics and determines the relative strength of the electromagnetic force. In essence, a can be considered a dimensionless measure of the charge on the electron.

Observational tests of the time variation of physical constants have been an idle curiosity of a handful of individuals, including myself, over the last few decades. Now a recent measurement by a team led by John Webb of the University of New South Wales in Sydney has thrust such studies into the spotlight. Webb and co-workers claim to have detected a significant variation in the fine-structure constant over time (J K Webb et al. 2001 Phys. Rev. Lett. 87 091301).

In the October issue of Physics World, Chris L Carilli of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, USA, explores the implications of the surprising discovery.

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I don’t hold anything in physics to be absolute…
they are always changing their mind…

It’s better to doubt, than blindly believe…

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The constants may vary, but they still exist.
Variable constants is an interesting concept though.

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*Originally posted by bamb0006 *
**I don’t hold anything in physics to be absolute…
they are always changing their mind…

It’s better to doubt, than blindly believe… **

Doubting has led to a great number of revalations in the field of physics and science. Rocking the boat is what keeps the ocean of thought churning.

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Do you doubt experimental proof? Einsteins Special Relativity equations are based on the fact that the speed of light is a constant, and there have been experiments done to verify his equations.

http://www.fnal.gov/pub/inquiring/more/light/light_page18.html

This is a brief summary about one experimental case.

Doubting experimental proof takes us back to a time before science to a place where would-be scientists were heretics.

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I don’t doubt experemental proof, but then I dont hold it to be absolute.

It’s all relative…

Sounds crazy… But so the Quantum world…