As for your comments on conviction, some convictions are good. For example, I am of the conviction that if I jump out of the window of a third story building I will not float away like a Willy Wonka visitor, awaiting a good burp to settle back down to earth. It is this conviction that keeps me grounded, pun intended.

There are situations where you could jump out a window and fly away like Willy Wonka. I could come up with a few, if you wish. Conviction is not good because it restricts your ability to clearly see the truth, in those instances where your conviction is false. If you are convinced of something which seems to be a permanent fact in our universe, you will be blind if there is an anomaly.

As for jumping out windows, conviction would be far more justified than if you were to mention Zeus or Cthulu. Things for which we have evidence, we are justified in believing. But that still does not entail absolute belief. Justified belief(knowledge, if true), is not the same thing as absolute belief.

It would be unfair for me to dissect your reasons for smiling, but I can almost assure you those reasons would fall into one of the two heart styles.

Do you still believe that? Either my smile represents my subservience to supreme rulership, or it's entirely selfish? If my empathy drives me to care for another person, is that selfishness? If it is love that drives me to smile at my son, is it submission to god, or is it a selfish smile?

Many misunderstandings are born from targeting different points in a chain of cause and effect. The most direct precursor to every smile is internal to a person, emotion. What provokes that emotion(the cause) could be god, a beautiful stranger, or your child(or an abstraction of any of the three). You're drawing your 'source of smiles' from two different links in the same chain of cause and effect.

I only press the point because I think some of your beliefs are fashioned just right to allow you to look down on the atheist type.

And with regard to Katelyn's statement on the "knowledge" of God, you must understand her use of this term in a passionate sense. When she says "know," she is not saying that she walked up to God, shook his hand, sat down and had a Ciabatta with him. She is saying that her spirit woman is convicted of this belief.

She is convinced of something that can't be justified knowledge. Thus the rampant use of the concept of faith. Belief in god is not 'knowledge', it's faith. I understand she's passionate, so is using the strongest language she can to express what she believes. But that very emotion and the unjustified conviction are precisely what I'm referring to. Such misunderstanding is how concepts such as a "theory" become diluted with misunderstanding. I think there are some concepts that should be clarified, when I see them used incorrectly.

tat tvam asi wrote:

TJamesMoss wrote:acceptance of a supreme being is the final line of thinking in this progression

...literal supreme being in the image of mankind [is] a primitive way of addressing nature. People are gradually becoming more enlightened than that and that is in no way the "end result" as it turns out. That personification is a symbol in our mythologies and the religions which have evolved from mythology, not a literal fact. The evolution of the God concept is still very much in motion and is always opening out.

This old so-called proof of the existence of God was destroyed by modern philosophy. Christians argued that we could always think of a better being, and the best being we could think of was God, who must exist because an existing God is better than an imaginary one. Just stating this argument shows its absurdity. A real dollar is better than an imaginary one, but that does not magic the real dollar into existence.

When Tat calls imagining an existing deity "a primitive way of addressing nature" he is exactly right. Primitive thought tends to be more spatial than conceptual, as ignorant people tend to assume that for something to be real it must be analogous to real objects we can see and touch. However, God, understood as the eternal and infinite cause of everything, is purely conceptual, not spatial or conscious or personal or deliberate. The laws of nature are all-powerful, but that does not mean gravity or evolution has a mind, except insofar as these physical laws obey a real mathematical logic.

To argue that nature or God has deliberate intentions, as a way of portraying how natural causal processes are inevitable once in train, is just the old error of creating god in our own image. The closest thing here might be saying that Gaia, goddess of the earth, is angry with humanity and plans to destroy us if we do not change our ways. However, this allegory, ascribing consciousness to material causal processes, is very misleading, because it leads straight to the nonsense of imagining God as a personal being. Gaia is not a personal being, Gaia is just the earth. We will not propitiate Gaia by offering sacrifices or prayers or worship, but only by finding new technology that can enable sustained human civilization in harmony with nature. Salvation is entirely a matter of reason, not faith.

Once we say god is personal, we cut ourselves off from sound ethics. To falsely imagine there is something beyond nature that can save us from the natural consequences of our actions is a celebration of deluded alienation. The only real relations we have are to natural reality.

Ethics needs a rigorous understanding of how humanity really relates to nature. Postulating anything supernatural is nothing but an obsolete primitive distraction from reality.

tjamesmoss.author wrote:

tat tvam asi wrote:

I respect your appreciation of nature and all of its facets, and it is a beautiful appreciation. Yet, if all there is to enjoy in this life is this life, this ride sucks...

That's too bad. If you can't manage to affirm life and existence just as it is, then you're truly lost...

Come now; that sounds like an insult.
I've never called you lost...

I apologize for the abruptness of my posts because you seem very nice. But I just mean lost in the sense of being sort of lost in life. Seeing light and darkness and not really knowing what to make of it all.

Wouldn't it be more productive to assume that this is the only life you'll live, the only consciousness you'll experience, and treat every single day like that instead of constantly 'pooh-poohing' this life and looking beyond? If you die and move on then so be it. Then you can treat the afterlife in the same way in terms of affirming it just as it is, for what it is, if turns out to be anything at all.

I mean to point out that this "grass is greener on the other side" mentality leads to poor care for the earth, little concern for the future, and ultimately a plague against the earth and humanity. It really is. And it only is because it's happening all around us on small scale in individual minds. The idea that this life doesn't matter too much because it's the next that's really important. Abd the idea that the earth will be cleansed with fire soon enough, so what's the bother? These mythological misunderstandings do more harm than good as I see it. And so getting to the root of the probelm is important.

@ Interbane, You are convinced that there isn't a God. That is also something that can't be proven. Yes, I have faith there is a God. And the lady (Sorry, can't remember all these usernames.) is right. That is how I mean 'know'. My religion is really no concern to you is it? And no, God is not going to slaughter you. You will be thrown in hell for not accepting Him. It will not be my fault. I tried. God knows I tried. But my faith has gotten stronger and stronger. Thank you. Thank you all for showing me how dumb rational your beliefs are. What would the world be like without God? I believe this is part of it. God is calling me, a 13 year old, to be an author. No, he is not talking, but I feel peace in my heart when I think of writing. That is God's sign that I'm doing what was meant for me to do. I will write. I will write for the glory of God. No one, nothing will stop me. Not you, not the devil, nothing. I know how blunt you can be on here. I have no problem being blunt. You want blunt? That's what you'll get. I think your beliefs are stupid superior to mine, they make no sense. How can something float around in outer space for billions of years (BTW, it wasn't anything. Because there was nothing.) and suddenly, KABOOM! there's everything? Who made it? How did it get there? It never was. Can you prove it was? No. All of your theories are false. You can't prove any of it. You can't. Go ahead. Prove it. I don't want to hear about babies with tails, 'cause that is a bunch of junk. I don't want to hear about Darwin, or any other stupid scientist. I want you to PROVE to me that there was a little fish swimming in outer space that blew into a giant monkey, that then turned into a hunchback man, who turned into a cave man, who turned into a modern man, and I guess this modern man became a woman. Do not correct me. I know that is not what schools teach, but it was basically the same. If ONE monkey turned into a man, what about women? Where did they come from? My faith makes sense. God makes ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN.

Hi Katie, welcome back. Thank you so much for the blast of hellfire, it really makes me chuckle in my belly.

Let me get this straight. All science, which is completely consistent and based on observation and evidence, is wrong. Okay, got that.

Genesis, which contains a mix of contradictory creation stories, is inerrant truth. Okay, whatever you say.

Anyone who relies on the evidence of their eyes and ears is off to hell, to burn in utter torment for thousands of years, at least. Serves them too right!!

(author) Katelyn wrote:I don't want to hear about Darwin, or any other stupid scientist. I want you to PROVE to me that there was a little fish swimming in outer space that blew into a giant monkey, that then turned into a hunchback man, who turned into a cave man, who turned into a modern man, and I guess this modern man became a woman. Do not correct me. I know that is not what schools teach, but it was basically the same. If ONE monkey turned into a man, what about women? Where did they come from? My faith makes sense. God makes ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN.

That's gold right there. Saved for posterity.

You'll be sorry that you don't believe in the fish monkey. He'll have the last laugh.

I just started reading these posts. Katelyn welcome back. You sure have started interesting debates which I have enjoyed immensley.

What would the world be like without God?

Well, let's see. It would be the very same as it is right now because the world is currently without any such mythological Deity...

I want you to PROVE to me that there was a little fish swimming in outer space that blew into a giant monkey, that then turned into a hunchback man, who turned into a cave man, who turned into a modern man, and I guess this modern man became a woman. Do not correct me. I know that is not what schools teach, but it was basically the same. If ONE monkey turned into a man, what about women? Where did they come from? My faith makes sense. God makes ONE MAN and ONE WOMAN.

Your parents are doing an excellent job teaching you about science. You make it sound more preposterous than a man's rib turning into a woman!

Katie, have you ever seen a website called http://www.venganza.org? Those people need you.