does anyone want to debate an atheist?

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sonicfox
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does anyone want to debate an atheist?

Post #1

Post by sonicfox »

Im looking for a chat debate, someone with experience that can tell me why they believe in whatever it is they do.

Chat only, one on one if possible, i dont know if its possible in this website tho

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Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

What exactly does "atheist" mean to you?

Did you want to debate a specific religion? Or are you open to "chatting" about the concept of a possible "God" or better yet the possibility of "A Spiritual Nature to reality in general"?

I too am an "Atheist" with respect to most religions (especially the Middle-Eastern and Abrahamic type of religions). However, I am "Agnostic" with respect to a few abstract spiritual philosophies.

I can actually offer some logically sound reasons to argue for why there "needs" to be a spiritual natural to reality. However, I openly confess that my arguments are neither conclusive, nor can they be well-defined since concepts such as "spiritual nature" are themselves often ill-defined ideals.

None the less, if you are interested in discussing a question like the following:

"Are there compelling reasons to suspect that our reality may be mystical or spiritual in nature?"

I could go for that. We could do it here, or as a One-on-One debate if you like.

If you are only interested in arguing against specific religions that make specific claims about their Gods then I'm not the person you are seeking to have a discussion with. :D

I don't support any specific religions, or their claims. :D

IMHO, those religions have long since been thoroughly debunked and cannot be true as claimed by their theologies, doctrines, and dogmas.
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Post #3

Post by sonicfox »

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

does this site support a chat like write? like an old messager. anyway im interested in what you know about the "spirtuality" of this world since i dont know anything about it. At least from experiece and we all know that we cant rely everything wee on the internet.

So, if you could get us a chat like website it would be great, this website in other hand is open for other users to comment and it will be complicated.

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Post #4

Post by DanieltheDragon »

sonicfox wrote: [Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

does this site support a chat like write? like an old messager. anyway im interested in what you know about the "spirtuality" of this world since i dont know anything about it. At least from experiece and we all know that we cant rely everything wee on the internet.

So, if you could get us a chat like website it would be great, this website in other hand is open for other users to comment and it will be complicated.

No chat feature they do have a section for one on one debate. You PM a moderator and they will set it up for you. You have to find a partner of course. The best way to do that of course is participate. The apologetics section is very active.
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Post #5

Post by Divine Insight »

sonicfox wrote: [Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

does this site support a chat like write? like an old messager. anyway im interested in what you know about the "spirtuality" of this world since i dont know anything about it. At least from experiece and we all know that we cant rely everything wee on the internet.

So, if you could get us a chat like website it would be great, this website in other hand is open for other users to comment and it will be complicated.
Actually we could discuss it in the Science and Religion Forum since that is basically the crux of our discussion. We're basically asking, "Is it scientifically reasonable to conclude a potentially mystical nature to our reality?"

I think that's too long of a title for a thread. How about, "Is Mysticism totally Unscientific?". Although that title may draw in a lot of traffic on an open forum.

We could try it and see how it goes. If there are too many distracting posts we could then arrange to "discuss"/debate it in a Head-to-Head thread where only the two of us could post.

You ask: "I'm interested in what you know about the 'spirituality' of this world since i don't know anything about it."

Well, I can give you the crux of my argument here in brief.

The Scientific Worldview:

In science it has been postulated and accepted that all that exists is a "material world" and the laws of nature that describe how the material behaves.

This is also known as "reductionism". It attempts to reduce the problem to only that which can be observed. It basically ignores the fact that the scientists themselves are actually required to make these "observations". Science just accepts this as a given.

Science also claim to be studying "objective" truths whilst ignoring that we really can only know anything from "subjective" experience. It justifies this approach by suggesting that if all subjective experiences agree on a specific observation then the observation must be "objective" (i.e. independent of our subjective experience of it)

So this is the basis of scientific reductionism. It assumes that there is indeed an actual physical world "out there" and that we are part of it. In other words, our "in here" (our subjective experience) must necessarily also be part of the "out there". After all, everyone else's subjective experience is going on "out there" as far as we can see. ;)

So "out there" is all that exists and therefore we should be able to explain everything in terms of what's "out there". In other words, we should be able to explain everything in terms of matter/energy and the observed laws of physics.

However, there is a problem with the above scientific assumptions.

There is nothing in matter/energy or any of the observed laws of physics that can explain why we are having a subjective experience at all. This is where the idea of "emergent properties" comes into the picture. However, in truth, this idea of emergent properties is a very weak idea for the following reasons.

Physics basically states the following:

Observation #1: There exists energy.

We can forget about "mass" because Albert Einstein was able to show us the E=mc². Therefore we can think of "mass" as just being standing wave patterns of energy. In other words, all we need is energy and we can make all the mass we like. :D

So energy is all that needs to exist. Ironically scientists have no clue what energy even is. As far as we can see energy is simply the "stuff" that can become standing wave patterns of matter, and cause this matter to move around relative to other standing wave patterns of matter. But science really has no clue what energy even is. All science can observe is that standing wave patterns of "matter" can apparently change form to become other standing wave patters of "matter", or it can become "pure energy" in the form of motion, or some form of potential to do work, etc.

In short, science simply observes that energy exists. And that is evidently the "substance" of this material world.

Observation #2: There appear to be only four forces that energy can exhibit.

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Strong Nuclear Force
4. Weak Nuclear Force

With just those four forces and a few conservation laws we can pretty much explain all of the motion and even chemical reactions that occur in our world.

However, none of these forces suggest that anything should be having a subjective experience.

The scientific argument is that the ability to have a subjective experience is an "Emergent Property" of complexity.

But actually we have never had the need for any "emergent properties" to explain anything else. Everything else can be explained using solely what has been outlined above.

So this idea of an "emergent property" to explain subjective experience isn't truly justified and certainly not clear how or why this should be the case.

So that's where we are at with science. Science basically has no explanation for how or why anything in this universe should be having a subjective experience, other than to suggest that this is somehow an "emergent property" of the above elements (i.e. energy and the four forces). But science gives absolutely no explanation of how or why this could work.

The Mystical or Spiritual Worldview:

I almost hate to call this "spiritual" because too many people have preconceived notions of what they think spiritual might mean. But here's the idea.

Instead of starting with reductionism and the observation that there appears to be a physical world "out there", Mysticism actually begins by recognizing that we are having a subjective experience. Mysticism justifies this by claiming that this is all we can truly KNOW for certain.

We can know for certain that we are having a subjective experience. We cannot know for certain that there is actually a physical world "out there". We can only know that this appears to be the case.

So Mysticism then also recognizes that there must exist "energy" and that just as Einstein has shown everything must ultimately be made of energy. This includes us and our subjective experience.

So we are this energy. No question about that, even science has to agree to this.

Therefore in Mysticism we rightfully add another "force" or "feature" to this energy from the get to.

So we have the following "forces" or "features" of energy:

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Strong Nuclear Force
4. Weak Nuclear Force
5. Subjective Experience

In other words, in this worldview energy itself is having this subjective experience as part of its natural properties.

The level to which it can experience will depend upon the level of complexity of the standing wave patterns it takes on. In other words, as a rock it can only have a very limited experience. As a plant it can have a lot more experience. And as an animal with a complex nervous system it can have a whole lot more experiences. And finally as an animal with a brain it can actually experience thinking!

So in this world view reality is "spiritual" or "mystical" and this property comes from the fact that energy itself has this spiritual or mystical ability to have an experience.

By the way, Mysticism is call mysticism precisely because it is granted that it is a mystery how this actually work. Mysticism doesn't claim to be able to explain why or how energy can have subjective experience.

But then again, keep in mind that science doesn't explain why the four forces of energy are what they are either. That's actually a mystery to science.

Anyway that's the long and short of it. :D

Here's a Ted Talk given by David Chalmers where he proposes this same basic idea:

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Post #6

Post by OnceConvinced »

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Society and its morals evolve and will continue to evolve. The bible however remains the same and just requires more and more apologetics and claims of "metaphors" and "symbolism" to justify it.

Prayer is like rubbing an old bottle and hoping that a genie will pop out and grant you three wishes.

There is much about this world that is mind boggling and impressive, but I see no need whatsoever to put it down to magical super powered beings.


Check out my website: Recker's World

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Post #7

Post by sonicfox »

[Replying to post 5 by Divine Insight]

we could then arrange to "discuss"/debate it in a Head-to-Head thread where only the two of us could post. "

can we do that? a website only for chat? or like messanger (hotmail) like chat?

Its very "old" discussing this kind of stuff in these websites, for me at least.

If you can find us a chat like 1 on 1 website, do it please

*Mod made this thread a "general chat" what is this?

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Post #8

Post by sonicfox »

[Replying to post 7 by sonicfox]

if you can get us a chat like website it woulbe be great,

now to answer your question, is the same as answering an agnostic

because we dont know doesnt automaticly mean it is.

Its evidence and we can denie that people really experienced paranormal stuff. But thats only evidence, if we cant be for sure then were not going to feel sure that it really is that there is a after life or a soul like that reside in us.

Great explanation by the way and im sure youre aware of this same conclusion of mine. The effort you put it to write such a big topic makes me happy. Thank you for your time.

Did you had any paranormal experiences? do you have another "evidence" of this after life or the "unsee" world or energy?

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Post #9

Post by Divine Insight »

sonicfox wrote: now to answer your question, is the same as answering an agnostic

because we dont know doesnt automaticly mean it is.
I totally agree. And for this reason I am myself an agnostic. :D

However, recall my proposed discussion or debate question:

Is Mysticism totally Unscientific?

I'm not claiming that mysticism is true. I'm simply suggesting the following:

A. Current scientific postulates don't appear to allow for anything to become self aware.

How can the following four forces of nature result in, or explain, how anything could become aware of have an experience?

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Strong Nuclear Force
4. Weak Nuclear Force

There simply isn't enough basis to science to answer that question.

Mysticism simply adds one more postulate:

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Strong Nuclear Force
4. Weak Nuclear Force
5. Subjective Experience

It also justifies this "addition" for two reasons. The first reason is that mysticism actually STARTS with the recognition that the only thing we can be absolutely certain of is the fact that we are having a subjective experience.

So in Mysticism Subjective Experience is actually our "First Observation".

1. Subjective Experience
2. Gravity
3. Electromagnetism
4. Strong Nuclear Force
5. Weak Nuclear Force

So in this sense Mysticism actually is an "Observational Science" that is grounded in observing our reality and listing what we see. Our conventional science never recognized this obvious first observation to add it to the list of properties of our universe. And now they are reluctant to add it.

So Mysticism may actually be more "scientific" than science. :D

And this was also the main idea put forth by David Chalmers. He's suggesting that if we want to address the concept of subjective experience scientifically, we may need to rethink our foundational postulates in science.

So I'm not saying that the mystical worldview is true. But I am suggesting that it may very well have every bit as much clout as science, and possibly even more so because science seems to be ignoring that our subjective experience is indeed the very FIRST thing we "observe" in this universe. We have simply ignored it because we ARE this observer. But that's really not a good reason to ignore this observation.

For science to know try to explain just what it is that is actually having a subjective experience using only the four forces it has "observed" may actually be impossible. Because it may very well be that those four forces have absolutely nothing at all to do with subjective experience. :D

That's my position. I'm not saying that Mysticism "must be true". But I am suggesting that it may actually have a better chance of being true than pure secular mechanics.
sonicfox wrote: Did you had any paranormal experiences? do you have another "evidence" of this after life or the "unsee" world or energy?
I have had experience that other people have claimed as "paranormal" experiences. I don't personally claim that they are necessarily "paranormal" however. I'll grant that they could have simply been hallucinations, etc. How could I prove otherwise, even to myself? :-k

One thing along these lines is that when I was a very young child I basically "remembered", that I have always existed. I remembered living in very primal conditions. Even so far back in my existence history to where I was not even human. But these could have just been my imagination. How could I prove otherwise to anyone, including myself.

I also had a very strong intuitively "knowledge" that I have always existed and there will never be a time when I will cease to exist. It's the kind of "knowledge" that you just know. It's not based on any kind of reason. I just knew for certain that I am an immortal entity. And for this reason I have never been bothered by the thought of death because I "know" that I can't die.

Is this "real knowledge", or is this just something my own mind conjured up in my imagination? Even I cannot answer that question with any certainty. It sure seems like valid knowledge to me, but perhaps my mind is playing tricks on me? I can't prove otherwise to anyone, including myself.

Also, as a young child (long before I was old enough to understand about religions or Gods) I felt the presents of a "Higher Being". It communicated with me, not in words, but in ways where it just conveyed to me the answers to my questions without having to say a word. The best way to explain this is that as soon as I thought of a question, the answer simply came to mind instantly. And I "knew" the answer was the truth.

But this all happened when I was very young, so I wasn't asking complex deep questions. In fact, the questions I was "asking" were just question that popped into my mind spontaneously at the time as well. Is there anything "paranormal" about this? Or was I just asking and then answering my own questions? I myself have no clue what the answer is to that question.

I also had an out of body experience when I was very young. I was not in a traumatic situation or anything like that. Although I was doing something that could be viewed as "meditation". In any case, when I had this OoB experience I realized that I am this universe. Or to put that another way, I realized that there is no actual boundary between my body and the universe. I actually felt this very profoundly.

Again, is this paranormal or just some sort of mental illusion that is perfectly normal and common? I simply cannot say. All I can say is that for me, at the time, it felt like there is no distinction between my body and the rest of the universe

I experienced most of these "sensations" as a very young child and they were so profound that they have remained strongly in my memory as events that did indeed seem to be "abnormal" at the time.

I have had similar experiences throughout my life and into adult life. Never quite as profound as they were when I was a child, but very similar none the less.

I am also never "alone". It doesn't matter where I am of it there is no one else around for miles, I am never "alone". I always feel like there is someone with me. I have come to think of this as my higher spiritual self. My eternal essence.

Again, is this real, or have I just convinced myself that I'm never alone and feel this way because I believe my own imagination? I certainly can't talk to this higher being and have any serious conversation like asking for tomorrow's lottery number. :D

So perhaps it's all just my own imagination. I certainly can't say what's going on. I claim to be "agnostic". I simply don't have any way to verify what is true.

What I do know is that science has not, and cannot, rule out the supernatural or paranormal. All it can say is that it too is "agnostic". It simply doesn't have enough information to make a final determination.

And as I pointed out previously, science is going to have an extremely difficult time trying to explain out the four forces of nature can produce "subjective experience".

As a scientist myself I just don't see where that's ever going to pan out.

How can you explain how something could have a subjective experiencing using only the following four forces:

1. Gravity
2. Electromagnetism
3. Strong Nuclear Force
4. Weak Nuclear Force

I would suggest that electromagnetism is certainly the "Best Candidate" but even that doesn't help much.

How can electromagnetism create subjective experience, and exactly WHAT is it that is having that subjective experience? :-k

Like David Chalmers, I too feel that science is simply ill-equipped to answer that question.

So to suggest that orthodox science should be the "default view" doesn't hold a lot of water as far as I can see. Why should that be the case? :-k
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Post #10

Post by sonicfox »

[Replying to post 9 by Divine Insight]

what are you sugesting? that science cant explain everything? that we have evidence of absense of evidence of other world?

i dont think i get it.

I usualy debate faith but never seen this topic on agnostic position.

agnostics are like level 1 on why they are wrong because we dont have 100% sure that there is a afterlife hence atheism only.

and theists are like lvl 10000 of stupidity,

So youre agnostic because you somehow agree that science cant explain everything hence a conclusion that a after life exists?

care to have patience to elaborate in a form that i can understand what you are trying to say?

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