<snip>

Or if you have a hard time with this...

<snip>

...if one were able to understand the concept at all...

<snip>

...never once having the wit to understand...

<snip>

Once one understands...

<snip>

One can only know God ... when one can reason...

So, practically speaking (and I'm an engineer, so I deal in nuts and bolts rather than abstract linguistic gymnastics), what use is any god if, as I suggest, around 98 % of human beings who have ever existed have not had the capacity, by your hurdle, to "know God"?

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I look forward to the return coming of Johnny Guinness.

+ 1
Profile of Philosopher8659

This member has been banned. (Mar 4, 2015 - 12:02 PM by unenlightened. Reason: low post quality)

I can understand that.

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You lost me. Who is Johnny Guiness?

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Dave Nelson

You lost me. Who is Johnny Guiness?

Johnny Guiness was posting a lot when I first started with this project . I'm not sure what happened but he has been quiet for some time now . His posts are still in the forums and I'm sure if you used the search function you can find all of his posts to read for yourself

Edit
think his team was called paddy's in space or something similar

You lost me. Who is Johnny Guiness?

LOL.

It must give you atheists a nice, warm fuzzy feeling to huddle together, here in the darkness, nodding in agreement among each other and acknowledging to each other that we are here, all alone. Nothing but the product of randomness in the vastness of space. A series of lucky rolls of the dice to lead us to "think, therefore we are... but why?" And then conclude that we all eat, reproduce and then die--all for no reason. A blink of an eye on a cosmic scale, then we vanish, cease, extinguish--back into nothingness.

Ah... Feels good to come to that conclusion, doesn't it?

I've never heard a better description about the belief of religion as you have just offered. Gives you a warm fuzzy feeling to believe in the mythical man in the sky who will make it all better.

psycosis: noun: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.

BTW there is a reason we eat, reproduce and die: entropy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGC_FE-pr_w

It must give you atheists a nice, warm fuzzy feeling to huddle together, here in the darkness, nodding in agreement among each other and acknowledging to each other that we are here, all alone. Nothing but the product of randomness in the vastness of space. A series of lucky rolls of the dice to lead us to "think, therefore we are... but why?" And then conclude that we all eat, reproduce and then die--all for no reason. A blink of an eye on a cosmic scale, then we vanish, cease, extinguish--back into nothingness.
Ah... Feels good to come to that conclusion, doesn't it?

I've never heard a better description about the belief of religion as you have just offered. Gives you a warm fuzzy feeling to believe in the mythical man in the sky who will make it all better.
psycosis: noun: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
BTW there is a reason we eat, reproduce and die: entropy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGC_FE-pr_w

God bless atheism.

On the other hand.
How can a collection of atoms be self aware?
Not only that. Life is inherited from the first successful DNA molecule that is thought to have occurred on Earth between 3.8 and 4 billion years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Life doesn't follow the second law of thermodynamics.
Life is a subset of a universal system and doesn't break any laws but it's a rather strange behaviour.

One can only know God ... when one can reason...

So, practically speaking (and I'm an engineer, so I deal in nuts and bolts rather than abstract linguistic gymnastics), what use is any god if, as I suggest, around 98 % of human beings who have ever existed have not had the capacity, by your hurdle, to "know God"?

The world just does not recognize a prophet in his own time.
In his Seti profile Philo... most humbly admitted to being an unwilling prophet,
and, i assume, his great humility made him edit that profile.
Even on http://forums.philosophyforums.com/members/philosopher8659-60537.html he is not recognized
for being enlightened, having been banned by unenlightened. Reason: low post quality.
The only prophet recognized on the Seti forums is Johnny Guinness, and he has
promised to return after decoding the secrets of anti-gravity from the human genome.
I look forward to the return coming of Johnny Guinness.

I edited my profile to aid in an understanding of meaning.

And, you really do not have to take my word for the fact that the human race is currently proto-linguistic, try to follow any of my arguments in my essays, I define the concept and only predicate what is given in the definition.

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https://archive.org/details/AUniversalLanguage

https://archive.org/details/TheDifferenceBetweenManAndBeast

https://archive.org/details/DelianQuest2015

How can a collection of atoms be self aware?

Best question, regarding The Subject.

How?

Better question: Given The Schrödinger wave equation, how can a collection of atoms not be self aware?

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Could P8659 be a troll?

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Dave Nelson

Could P8659 be a troll?

Absolutely!

I could even be a tree in somebodies back yard.

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https://archive.org/details/AUniversalLanguage

https://archive.org/details/TheDifferenceBetweenManAndBeast

https://archive.org/details/DelianQuest2015

How can a collection of atoms be self aware?

Best question, regarding The Subject.

How?

Better question: Given The Schrödinger wave equation, how can a collection of atoms not be self aware?

Hmm.
"The Schrödinger equation is a partial differential equation that describes how the quantum state of a quantum system changes with time".
That's probably only a tiny part of the answer.
Particles interact with each other in many ways.
The problem with life is that many trillions of atoms in an organism interact with each other together.
Perhaps self awareness is only a function and a result from physical laws but that seems very strange to me.

@Clyde
The Schrödinger wave equation is a fact, not a hypothesis.

And, you really do not have to take my word for the fact that the human race is currently proto-linguistic, try to follow any of my arguments in my essays, I define the concept and only predicate what is given in the definition.

Actually I think the term proto-linguistic doesn't really make sense. A proto-language is a thing, and linguistics refers to the science of language and linguistic to language/linguistics. Logically proto-linguistics would thus be whatever sort of science came before linguistics, the common ancestor of a number of linguistics studies.

It must give you atheists a nice, warm fuzzy feeling to huddle together, here in the darkness, nodding in agreement among each other and acknowledging to each other that we are here, all alone. Nothing but the product of randomness in the vastness of space. A series of lucky rolls of the dice to lead us to "think, therefore we are... but why?" And then conclude that we all eat, reproduce and then die--all for no reason. A blink of an eye on a cosmic scale, then we vanish, cease, extinguish--back into nothingness.

Ah... Feels good to come to that conclusion, doesn't it?

Actually, it is very liberating. The moment I realised that I didn't believe in god I felt a huge weight lift off me and realised that I had more control over my life than I realised. There was no 'great plan' and I wasn't being judged by a set of rules that seemed horribly unfair. It was wonderful.

I highly recommend it.

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Reality Internet Personality

Just as Discarded 'facts', in the past did. It is just, as other theories, the present explanation. To be questioned, as all must be.
This hopefully brings us inches closer to The Truth.
We are in the childhood of our Scientific Era. Where, many years from now: Many of our present Accepted Facts, will be discarded.

That science are being questioned all the time is part of all scientific works.
For instance Newton's law of gravity is not quite correct.
There have been measurements done of the distance to moon using mirrors placed there during the Apollo project.
It turns out that is a difference between measurements and calculations and it's being different by some meters.
Perhaps it's the Heisenberg uncertainty rule that are the cause.

The Schrödinger wave equation and other quantum mechanical rules have been tested over and over again.
You dont find those discrepancies there.

Actually, it is very liberating. The moment I realised that I didn't believe in god I felt a huge weight lift off me and realised that I had more control over my life than I realised. There was no 'great plan' and I wasn't being judged by a set of rules that seemed horribly unfair. It was wonderful.

I highly recommend it.

That was my experience too Es99
The sudden sense of freedom and feeling more at one with the universe than any other point in my life.

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I do not fight fascists because I think I can win.
I fight them because they are fascists.
Chris Hedges

A riot is the language of the unheard. -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Actually, it is very liberating. The moment I realised that I didn't believe in god I felt a huge weight lift off me and realised that I had more control over my life than I realised. There was no 'great plan' and I wasn't being judged by a set of rules that seemed horribly unfair. It was wonderful.

I highly recommend it.

That was my experience too Es99
The sudden sense of freedom and feeling more at one with the universe than any other point in my life.

It really did feel like "the scales had fallen from my eyes" and I could see everything clearly for the first time. I agree, I certainly feel more like part of this wonderful universe an closer to my species than before. We are all in the same boat, and the best we can do is take responsibility for how we deal with the randomness of it all. It is very empowering.

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Reality Internet Personality

Life doesn't follow the second law of thermodynamics.

It doesn't? Are you sure?

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I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that ...

Life doesn't follow the second law of thermodynamics.

It doesn't? Are you sure?

Yes.
Can you tell any other physical phenomea that does the same?
But it also depends what part of the system you are observing.
If you look at the universe as a whole, life is decaying and following the second law of thermodynamics.
However, our galaxy is too young to experience that.

Come to think about it.
Quantum tunneling effect.
In order for a particle to get a lower energy from a higher energy level you require some energy to do that.
It's like having a basket with a ball on top of an other basket.
You must pull the ball out from the top basket so it can move the lower one.
Balls in the quantum world doesn't care.
They move anyway.

How can a collection of atoms be self aware?

Best question, regarding The Subject.

How?

Better question: Given The Schrödinger wave equation, how can a collection of atoms not be self aware?

Hmm.
"The Schrödinger equation is a partial differential equation that describes how the quantum state of a quantum system changes with time".
That's probably only a tiny part of the answer.
Particles interact with each other in many ways.
The problem with life is that many trillions of atoms in an organism interact with each other together.
Perhaps self awareness is only a function and a result from physical laws but that seems very strange to me.

Physics is not only strange, but stranger than we can imagine.

To exist something has to collapse the wave function. So if an atom exists, it is aware of itself because the wave function is collapsed. The collapse limits how/where/when it can interact so it very much is aware of this happening. Perhaps the thought process it uses to conclude that is alien to a human brain, but nevertheless it occurs. It sets into play the entire universe.

Actually I think the definition of self aware may need a lot of work. Jacaranda trees are aware of each other. They smell. We can't talk to cats, dogs, dolphins or jacaranda trees so we don't know if they are aware of themselves in the manner the questioner means. But they may well know the true meaning of life. 42.

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