tar

Split, I think you are right. It fits with my thinking, that good is what fits, and evil is what does not work. It is an inside out way of thinking, but I think it may be what we do when we think of God. Maybe not accidental that God and good are so close in form in English. (I will have to do a little study and see if the relationship between correctness and ultimate leadership of the supernatural sort, exists in other languages as well.) By the way, I read the other day that "supernatural" first came about due to the placement of metaphysical studies "after" the study of natural sciences in books and courses. This is important because I have been using "supernatural" as a synomym for unnatural or unreal, and it may be nothing of the sort. It may be best to consider supernatural as that which we do with the natural after we internalize it. Thus considering any idealization of nature a supernatural endeavor. Regards, TAR2

SplitIninity, So what are you saying? That God is a placeholder for the Alpha Male? The Ultimate Alpha Male? That whatever benefit it was to submit to the alpha male, is still an important consideration? Could be. People do tend to submit to the leader who is the most knowledgeable, the strongest and the most capable. Many leaders are strong, smart, or knowledgeable, or some combination of those traits. Not often do people trust in the laziess, stupidest, weakest, and most foolish and uncoordinated to follow. Not many reasons to do that. While there has been a shift to a large extent, from personal power, to accrued financial, and military, and technological power, we may still have a "need" to imagine we have a chief that trumps and can overpower all comers. That we are on the side of this idealised supreme leader. Seems to be so in North Korea. Most groups of people operate with at least a figurehead in that position, if not an actual King, Queen, President, Chief, Mullah, Chairman, General, Grand Poopa, dictator, Pope, or "spiritual" leader. Its sort of either that, or anarchy. Perhaps putting ones faith in an Immortal leader that can not be killed, is actually a good strategy. Unfalsifyable, unstrikable, impervious to any possible weapon, no way to defeat. A power one can imagine even the strongest, smartest, richest most capable person or group of people, having to answer to. Regards, TAR2

Mondays Assignment Die, Being unique psychologically may be behind both religious and nonreligious anti-social acts and thoughts. Consider the ununique tendency we all have, to side with our own unique attributes and circumstances. There is not a one of us, that is not born into a unique situation, in reference to the rest of the world. We each are at a particular place and time, of a differnciating sex, height, wheight, intelligence, native language, wealth, personality and so forth, with a unique "story" or group of "stories" against which we reference our lives. And we each have a unique history of what we have experienced, what we have learned, what capabilies we have aquired and each have a pretty good "unique" idea of what we "should" be doing next, to put the world "right", or to associate ourselves in the correct manner, with it. We each have free will, to the extent that we excercise our own unique will. But unique from what, and consistent with what other wills is an important consideration. For both the religious, and the nonreligious actor. For both evil acts and good ones it depends a lot on who one has assigned or recognized to be the judge of the situation. Regards, TAR2

Any ideology can wind up at odds with another ideology, and it only matters at that point, who is in position to push the other off the bridge.

SplitInfinity, No, it doesn't. But it does imply that we have faith that many things go on, that we personally do not know about. Imagined things that we know are real, that must be real, based on our understanding of our local world. Things we have projected, and "given" to the world, based on our sampling of the local environment. Maybe this post belongs in the "concept of God" thread, but one of the definitions of faith has to do with belief in something, based on something other than material evidence. We assume that the microwave background radiation exists in every direction, even though we do not see it, when we look toward the center of the Milky Way. The dust and stars and possible black hole of our galaxy, block the distant sky, in that direction. We do not "know" what lies behind it. We just have faith, that the pattern we observe in all the other directions, is more or less repeated in that direction as well. We take this on faith. We understand this, based on something other than material evidence. Its basically unfalsifiable, because we CANT see what's behind. We just have faith, that given a hundred thousand years, our Sun would move around the center far enough, that we could see what is behind what now blocks our view, and that we already "have an idea" of what we would see. Regards, TAR2 If dead men tell no tales, then the unborn can't either. Since we DO have faith in the unborn to know what we do not, it is alright, in my estimation to extend the courtesy to others alive at the moment, and to extend the same courtesy to our forefathers and mothers, and the guy that died last month.

Splitinfinity, We absolutely can prove that there is more going on, than we are aware of. My tag line speaks of this. And even if we put EVERYTHING any human on Earth has ever experienced, recorded and shared with other humans, there is still a lot of places on Earth that no one has checked out, in the last year, to see what is going on there, and still other worlds, that we will never know about. Worlds insulated from us, by time and space. And that is if you put everybody together. If you are just talking about you, or me, its a no brainer to prove that there is more going on, than we are aware of. I don't even remember what is in every box in my attic. I doubt you would be aware of the presence and the history, of every object up there. There is a lot going on, that is outside our personal awareness, and is not built into our model of the world. Regards, TAR2

chris logan, Still, people have a conscience, and judge themselves on the basis of it. As well as holding others to the same criteria. Many, who do not believe in a God/Judge, still care about how their Mom would feel about their actions or lack thereof. Whether Mom is alive or not. My theory anyway. Many threads ago, iNow had a great one going, talking about how religion hijacked human neurology. In that thread, we learned about how us humans develop the ability to imagine unseen others. When the various components of the feat develop, and what areas of the brain are active when this ability is excercised. In my muses, it is not an entirely different thing we do, when we imagine an unseen other, that exists in reality, and when we imagine an unseen other that has passed away, or moved out of our lives, or for that matter, never existed in the first place. I used to have conversations, in my mind, with Immortal, as I was driving home from work, imagining what he would say, and constructing a line of argument, I might try against his philosophy later that night. He got banned. Dead to the threadworld of ScienceForum, but I still consider his position, and his logic, and his lack thereof, AS IF he was reading and responding, even though I know he can't respond. As well, people are known to have, especially in childhood, imaginary friends, with personality, feelings, and judgement. Unseen others, with whom a conversation, outloud or silently, can be had. Not a stretch too far, in my thinking, to see that this same facility can be highjacked, or repurposed, or used, to form an unseen other, out of the real forces and forms of reality. Something like the "scientific community" or the "church", or "the human spirit", or life on Earth or the Sun, or the power apparent in the stars, personified and conversed with, and judged against, as an unseen other. I do not think that dead men tell no tales. I have read too many books written by such. They are as alive to me, as Immortal currently is. Regards, TAR2

Split Infinity, and Monday's assignment die, So we seem to be all arguing in the favor of some sort of moderation. That the outliers, the too strong number ones, or the too strong number two's, are taking things too far, and take them in a way that makes reality unreal for the rest of us. Interesting to me, is the fact that we, as humans, have been at this being human thing, for quite a few years, quite a few lifetimes and for quite a few rises and falls of civilizations. And its always been important to us, to be right. And we have not come up empty in finding ways to be right. Nor did we ever lack the desire to share those ways with our loved ones, our neighborhoods or our societies. Yesterday, a Mr. Rogers video went viral (in response to the Boston Bombings), where he explained how his Mom had told him to "look for the helpers", when experiencing horrible occurences. The helpers are always there, they are always true. No doubt we count on each other to share our findings about how the world works, so that we can benefit from technology and, statistical realities, and work those things into our decisions and actions. No doubt we all depend on experts in fields other than ours, to survive and prosper, to be happy, to be right, to fit with our world. It seems to me, that we have a need to share, a responsibility to share, and an automatic response that associates us, in the intuitive sense with the world around us, that is not limited by our own, or by another's rational thought about the situation. Interesting to me, is that if we give each other the same human judgment, that we ourselves possess, we actually would be right, and could feel good about that fact, in and of itself. Regards, TAR2

Monday's Assignment Die, Read the link on dual process thought. The intuitive and and rational mind. I am not so sure the two are as separate as depicted in the article. They seem to be looking at it, as if there are two separate minds at work in our brains. Maybe it seems so, but I don't think it makes sense to think the two processes are as much separate, as two aspects of consciousness that are intermingled in too many different ways to be so symbolically divided. Not completely a different idea as the Id and the Superego with the Ego as the moderator as Freud suggested. But why not accept both the immediate reality, and our rememberance and processing of it as being parts of the same deal. As you might have noticed, I like to look at things sideways and see things so that they are true, in more than one way. For example, if you think about it, the immediate noticing of reality, the "quick" and automatic mind in the dual process theory, is actually more "real" than the theoretical afterthoughts about it. The afterthoughts of the rational mind, rely on symbols, one thing standing for another, where the intuitive mind just knows, just takes the thing for what it appears to be. This take, is actually more likely to "fit" with reality than the analogies and the maps and models we take and make from it. Consider this. As cosmologists and physicists and mathematicians were putting together the standand model, 25 years ago, they "thought" they knew the universe, as it really was, and discounted what their senses and intuition told them about it. It was all very clear and fit together nicely in their rational minds. Then somebody was surprised at the data graph of the output of a type 1a supernova, that suggested things were farther away than they "thought", and there would have to be some large amount, some 70 percent of the universe that we did not "know" about before. What strikes me, about the "finding", is that if that 70 percent is "out there" we must have missed what it "looks like" around here, as well. That is if the universe is homogenous and operates under the same laws, as "thought". Either that, or that 70 percent "looks" different from millions of lightyears away, than it does up close, or we are already calling it something else, when it is experienced locally. In this light, we may just "hope" that our rational mind transcends our intuitions and feelings and "animal" truths. We may just "hope" we are a "ghost in the machine" and not tied completely to our mortal heart/body/mind. We may be "spinning" ourselves a transcendent web of lies, that places our rationality in a superior position, to that which is actually the case. We might have a "concept" of God, automatically, intuitively, which we "talk" ourselves out of, as we "think" we have achieved a "model" of the thing, that is superior to the thing in itself. Then some are skeptical of the skepticism which makes them right, and some believe the skepticism makes them right. Which would sort of explain everybody, because we all figure that we "get it", and everybody else is missing the point, or misleading themselves. Might also explain why half of us believe in God, and half of us don't. Regards, TAR2

Phi for All, Formal understanding, is important. It gives us a link to objective truth. Something we can be right about, and associate with, even if it was something understood by somebody other than us. I never understood formal proofs. I never understood the principle. Much of education is memorizing what someone else has figured out is true. I always liked to figure things out for myself, and some things just did not make complete sense to me. Others made complete sense, and I did not understand why you would have to prove something that already seemed correct. Then there were these "convention" things, that you just accepted as true, even though you did not understand why such a thing should be true. Specially things involving 1 and 0 that I just never "saw" the reason for, and just had to accept as true. Then there were "limits" and how they were handled, and integrals. I never was quite convinced that all operations performed took everything into consideration. Sort of like measuring a shore line but not counting the inlets and outcroppings, and not measuring around each grain of sand the water seeped between. So, formal understanding, to a certain extent, would depend on human agreement. What you are talking about, what assumptions you are making, and what is to be "understood" to begin with. So what is the use of a "proof", if you already know what you are trying to prove. Or worse yet, if you have to use things that look a lot like what you are trying to prove, to prove the thing. And only people smarter than you, can "do it" "properly". Phi, I am with you 100% that creationism is bunk, and makes no sense, and counters formal understanding, of all the sciences. I am with you 100% that a god that has a plan for us, is contrary to sense and logic AND formal understanding of our world, and what is possible to be true. But scientific objectivity, requires a certain submission to "other" minds than your own, that know what you do not, that you can not "check" for yourself, and have to just believe on general principle, on the general belief that there is a benevolent common understanding, bigger than any individual participant. If an individual can be right, by association, simply because he believes in the formal understanding of science, why is it a completely different thing if a person claims to be right, by association, simply because he believes in the formal understanding of God? Regards, TAR2

Phi for all, I am in concordance with both your and Moontanman's last posts. The fundamentalists have taken a step that is contrary to logic and sense, and is unexplainable by my matching priciple. Unless perhaps if you throw in the fear of death thing, as Moontanman suggests. Then there is a possibility that people can either decide to be, or be taught to be their own personal spin doctors. Or accidentally or subconsciouly become such. How many times, in politcal discussions have you heard "a talking point"? The thing has some truth in it, but ones trust in its truth is bolstered if you are an adherent, because its what you thought, but one is skeptical of it if you are an opponent, because you don't trust the intentions of the speaker, and since its "a talking point", you figure they don't really know the thing, don't really have any basis in believing the thing, and are just repeating something that somebody else in the opposition camp has dreamed up. Like you guys trying to figure out, what it is I am trying to smuggle into the discussion. Answer to the faith question most likely is to be found in my own beliefs. In those things I spin in my direction. In those ways I choose to feel right about the world. In those things I have included in my belief system that allow for verification and matching with reality. One of the "aces" I always carry with me, to this talk board, is my faith in you guys and gals. I know I will be right, to assume you have human capibilities similar to mine. You don't even have to agree with me on anything I say. I get the "being right" reward, as soon as I see an acknowleging post that has my name in it, or otherwise indicates that something from me, got to you, and was returned. Forgive my wandering here, but it may be an important point. Yesterday I was smiling as I was walking into the house, looking around at the things I had established, and the things my wife had done, and the things that were done in concert with countless other unknown humans...and there was still a whole bunch of stuff I was in concert with, that had no human behind it. Still felt right. Regards, TAR2 Might be important as well to consider the association that religion has with the belief in the supernatural, which by definition can only have one natural source, that being a human's imagination. And the association with spirital "insights" being obtained on lonely mountaintops and through sensory deprivation in caves, and through the peyote of the witch doctor. And it might explain the ritualistic nature of religious services, the repeating of the same words until you take them as true in and of themselves, and you get the matching reward, just by hearing the same words that others hear. Can't leave out 100,000 Muslims circling the stone, reciting the Koran to themselves. Just feels right.

Iggy, Ok. I see your point. I shouldn't pick a fight, if I don't intent to throw a punch. But maybe that is not my approach or intent. I would honestly rather stop the fight. Asking the questions like "what are we fighting about", instead. Phi for all, Spin Doctors are something like Witch Doctors, in that their operations involve fooling people. Smart people can fool stupid people if they want to. Or smart people can teach stupid people if they want to. By definition the "truth" is in the hands of the smarter, to be withheld or dispensed as the smarter sees fit. The stupid person, the one not in possession of the truth that the smarter person has, has the choice of either believing the smart person, or not. This choice is based on the stupid person's faith in the other, or distrust of the others intentions. Nobody likes to be fooled. Everybody likes to be right, to know the truth. Everybody likes to "get it", and nobody likes being played the fool. People tend to trust people that are smarter and more capable and more knowledgeable than they are. People tend to be fooled by people that are smarter and more capable and more knowledgeable than they are. So track record is the best way to judge other people's facts and intentions. But you never know for sure, whether or not you are putting your faith in the right people. People lie. People have alterior motives. People have true enemies. People have secrets. And other people are "always" in possesion of facts and beliefs and capabilities that you do not have in your possession. So, is there another person we can always put out faith in? Is there another thing, a fact, or principle, that we can always count on? Is there a something that has a perfect track record? That is always true, and never would or could decieve us? My theory, my matching principle, says that reality fills this bill, and thusly becomes in truth, ones personal God. And one is left with the choice of whether to put ones faith in the Witch doctor, or the sky the Witch doctor is under. Regards, TAR2

Phi for all, I actually did consider bowing out, for some of the same reasons you delineate. I tend to be too full of myself, thinking that since things make sense to me, they should make sense to others. I get involved in this wordy, flow of consciousness thing, that is fun for me, since I get such a kick out of myself, but don't really offer any sound arguments, just opinions and vague direction of ideas, in some sort of false hope, that others will "catch on" and verify my findings and agree. That I might be right, and get that reward that we get, when we are correct. And I might still back off, 'til I do some work, and put some things together with some more solidity to it. This is, after all a science forum. Random thoughts, might be cute and fun, but not very useful. Not fair to the rest of you, if I keep moving the goal posts about. So let me take one peice of your question. The "marketing" angle. I mean to tie it into the idea, that there is some "fooling" involved in marketing. But I won't start off at the moment, in my usual fashion. Let me put it together in a manner that ties all the peices together in a nice argument that won't require any postscripts and afterthoughts. Regards, TAR2 ...later. Um...my theory doesn't work. My wife read me some 17 articles of faith from The Kings College in Manhattan. The faith they are talking about makes no sense at all. It is not consistent with my theory. I can't explain them under my principles of "matching with reality". Their faith doesn't match with reality at all. I will have to go with your spin doctor theory. I would have to work really hard to contort my theory through the many twists and turns it would take to rationally explain such nonsense. Occum says it would be unwise to attempt it.

I know Immortal was banned. But he was no fool. He knew there was an important relationship between the self and the all. He just had the whole thing backward. Put the model in the place of the thing. Said he was the thing and the rest was the model. That is obvious to the rest of us, to not be the case. We, in the end, in the "final" assessment, must be models of the thing. And if we were to build "artificial" intelligence, it is not likely we could do it, by informing a machine of our information. We should instead give a machine the ability to gather information on its own, and design a way to reward the machine, and make it feel good, when it is right about things. We would have to give the machine faith in reality. Give the machine the ability to be conscious of the way it fit with the rest.

"Human judgment is therefore removed by the furthest extent that it can be." Iggy, Or you can think, like I do that the scientific method applies human judgment to its fullest extent possible. Regards, Two way TAR Iggy, You have to remember my motives. I am looking for the ways that the scientist and the fool are similar. We already know where they differ. Plain objective fact, when you consider intelligence quotients, is that most people are grouped together, with just slight differences in capabilities. You have some outliers to the downside, and to the upside, but basically speaking we all have similar equipment, same chemicals, same brain structure, same "way" of sensing and remembering and symbolizing the world. Same grammar, same feelings, same basic sitiuation. Same basic human condition. We were all born, and we will all die. Does not really matter, from this perspective if I believe in God or not. The same thing would be the actual case, in either case. Somebody in this argument recently discounted the religious person's "need" to have a final answer. I am thinking that this need is a human thing. Understandable from the simple principles I am trying to build human consciousness up from. When we are "right" we get a chemical reward in our brains. What does being "right" mean? According to my thinking it may be evolutionarily based and important scientifically in understanding consciousness and thought. We are "right" when the model in our brain, matches the environment we are in. Its what allows the single celled organism to go after food, or the spider to build its web. Or Immortal to speak of emminations, or Krauss to speak of the end of the universe. Its why I say in the "Can you mix Science with God" thread, that we already have. And why I say in this one, that having faith in objective reality is what we do. Regards, TAR2 Under this thinking "survival of the "fittest"" takes on a whole new meaning, or perhaps, if I am right, it actually means exactly what it states. Its good when it fits. You win when you get a match. Best match wins. The Strength of Faith.

Phi for All, and Iggy, Sorry about that. Rather tried to say to much at once and wound up with a rather weak and too long thought. I think my point was that scientific method relies on human judgement. Not only once, but again and again in the repeating of the same experiment by another, "outside" consciousness, to verify the findings of the first and the next and the next. This cannot mean anything but that we count on objective reality to tell us, to inform us, of what is true. We do it once when we see the stars, we do it again when we have faith that billions of objective judges see the same stars. The stars are true in one way, and then they are true in another way as well. Regards, TAR2 Or maybe, put more simply. Some have faith in God. Some take God for granted. We all attempt to form a consistent worldview, using human judgement and subjectively applying it to the same world.

Iggy, Well here is my rational. The world itself, reality, fits together perfectly, and alway takes account of itself. Our analog representations of it are very close to fitting together perfectly, except they are representations of the thing that always keeps perfect account, and the representations do not have to actually fit together as perfectly as the real thing must. We can make false assumptions, sense things incompletely, see things that are not there, and miss things that are. We can take shortcuts, in fact HAVE to take short cuts to internalize the world. Pattern matching, generalizations, seeing what we want to see, and the like. Our eyes can be bigger than our stomachs, so to speak. We can think about eating an amount that will not actually fit in our stomachs. Or we can dream about telling our boss off, but once we are in a position to do it, we find the impulse will not workably fit with reality. Think of how many "plans" there are that just don't work, and have not taken all of the aspects of reality into account. Jumping off of tall stuff with giant wings attached to your arms, imagining you can fly like a bird. It worked in theory, but did not fit with reality. Think how many dreams you have had, that do not translate well into reality. Things fit together perfectly in the dream, but the rules were different there. Everything did not have to fit, as it does in reality. With this thesis, that reality must fit perfectly with itself, every action having a reaction, conservation of mass and energy and all that, I readily assume that the world is more perfect than my internalization of it. I can make mistakes, forget, overestimate, underestimate, leave important considerations out of a judgement and so on. The world does not have these limitations. It always fits. Its the thing I am trying to match up with, to determine what is true or not true. Its not the other way around. So I have faith in this thing. This real world that we have our very close matches with. All our images are of this thing. The images cannot be "truer" than the thing the images are of. The model can not work better than that which the model is of. The model usually doesn't even come close to working as well and completely fitting together as the thing does. So something is true to me, and exists if I can see how it fits with reality in more than one way. If it appears to be the same thing, whether you look at it from the right or the left, from the bottom or the top, from the back or the front, or from the inside or the outside. Such is my feeling about subjectivity and objectivity. The true things are the things that exist from both perspectives. Such is my feeling about figurative meaning and literal meaning. If something has both a figurative and a literal meaning, it is a good candidate to have gone through the internalization process before, and therefore actually exists, At least enough for another human to agree with the judgements about it, I might have. So something is true, by my defintion, if it fits the world, if you know it matches with your idea of it AND it fits in some other way, as well. Especially true if others can repeat your experiments and get the same results. Then the thing, really is the case. Images are not so reliable and fitting as reality is. Symbols do not actually perform as truely as the thing that the symbol means. You cannot make an equation for a peanut butter cup. And even if you did, you couldn't eat it. And even if you ate it, it would not taste sweet and chocolatey. Peanut butter cups are true things. So whether I am a pantheist of the diest variety or a pantheist of the athiestic variety makes no difference to the truth of the world. Its still huge beyond our understanding. Its still longlived beyond our grasp of time. Its still more intricate and layered and interconnected than we have the ability to comprehend. Whatever is true about it is bound to be the case, regardless of whether or not, you or I notice or agree. If I have faith in this being the case...do you think I am incorrect in my judgement? Regards, TAR2

Iggy, Equivocate might be what I do, but it is not with the intent to mislead, it is an attempt to not commit to only one way of looking at a thing. It is an attempt to say true things that can be taken two ways. Regards, TAR2 Attempts to say things that would be true to a believer, and a non-believer.

Iggy, Well sorry to disappoint. Anyway, you do not have to believe in God to be good. You just have to be good. My theory is that 95% of people are good, and half believe in God and half don't. So there is your answer to that. Yes you can be good without believing in God. And the 5% are probably split 50 50 as well. So believing in God is neither automatically good or automatically bad. One party need not convert the other party to their reasons for being good. One should just use their best judgement, and be good, because its the right thing to do. Whether you know why something happens, or you think you might know, or you hope it might happen, or you trust that it might happen or you have faith in it happening, doesn't quite matter as much as whether it actually happens or not. Regards, TAR2

Often, when I am about to retire for the night, I ask myself the question "What is it?" If I knew what I was asking, I would know the answer.

"Let me get back to the question then. I jumped ahead. You say some people do need God to accomplish things of value. That was the question I asked. So, can you give me an example of "something of value" that *could not be done* by a particular person, or a type of person, unless they believed in God." Iggy, I think it important, in answering the query to differenciate between the God that is impossible, and the God that is possible. I say that, because there are areas of life and search for truth, in my muses and insights were I catch myself believing in something that oversteps the bounds of provable, real stuff we can all agree all. I do not always completely discount something, just because it appears to be outside the bounds. We have been wrong about such things before. It is difficult to tell another, just how far it is you mean to reach over the bounds. How much you are "suggesting" a possibility, and how much you appear to be claiming a truth. So I think it easy to discount a believer that I know has stepped over the bounds, and that seems to be "believing" a truth, that cannot be. But mingled in amoungst such a believers beliefs are portions and peices of real provable stuff, that the believer has attributed to a magical, pretend, over the bounds thing, that must have been caused by something more reasonable and understandable and true. That, on the one hand. On the other hand is that in amongst the real provable stuff we all agree on, there are little portions of magical wonderful, impossible seeming things, that although we know they have to be true, because they are there, we have no for sure explanation for them, and they have to sit in a "to be figured out later" area of our "understanding". So to answer your question, as to when something cannot be done, without requiring a belief in God, or to suggest an example of such a thing, you have to allow for a sane, rational person to have belief in this "to be figured out later" area of reality. This area that one knows MUST be true, but does not have a grasp of the details involved. And realize, that in my way of thinking, in my equivocation mode, I let my "to be figured out later" area, stand for the "god" that someone else might be believing in. From this perspective any example of one having faith in reality acting in a certain understandable fashion, for an unknown reason, can be conflated with God. And the things we do, any thing we do, shows a certain belief we have in the things we do not know for sure, but we still know MUST be the case. From this perspective, I can give you no examples of belief in impossible things giving one the ability to affect reality, but can give you a million examples of belief in unknown unsure, but true things giving one the strength and ability to proceed. One would not buy life insurance, if they did not believe in life after death. One would not plant grass seed, if they did not believe it would grow. One would not give money to earthquake victims, if they did not believe it mattered to someone and it would make a difference. Consider the growth of brain cells and neurons in an infant in the womb. How do the little growing things know exactly which way to grow? How do they know which way to go? We all have faith in their ability to do what they do and wind up building a brain that can think, and feel and dream. Its a little more than hope. Regards, TAR2

dear who? Iggy, Well if I was a theist I would believe in God. I do not, believe in God. Therefore I am an atheist. I call myself one, because I fit the definition. What are you telling me. Why are you telling me I must believe in God? And that I must stop not believing in God. How can I be not believing in God, improperly? Are you saying that there is a God to not believe in? Or are you accusing me of pretending that there is a god, and then pretending to not believe in the pretend thing? Hum. A false atheist. How is that logicallly doable? Regards, TAR2 to a believer in Allah, I am an unbeliever. to a believer in the God of the Bible, I am an unbeliever. to a believer in the secrets of the Vedas I am an unbeliever. to an atheist I am an ununbeliever. On the other hand. If there is ANYTHING to believe in, and I believe in that thing, I MUST be believing in something that someone else, somewhere, somehow, believes in. In the Venn diagram way of looking at things, something I have faith in, must overlap something someone else has faith in, somehow.

Iggy, I can not repeat the no god of any kind part. Because there are to many things I believe in, that I have faith in, that existed before I was born, and will exist after I die. This, from an objective point of view, makes me similar to a cell, in an organism. A cell that can perform its function, as a crucial part of the living organism, die, be replaced by another like cell, and the organism still lives. Stars are born, live and die, another takes its place and the galaxy lives on. I am not a completely different kind of thing than a star, or an ameoba. 'Cept for this consciousness thing. And this language thing, and this intelligence thing. That is why its called "the hard problem of consciousness". Because people have this feeling that there is something different about us, that neither an ameoba nor a Sun has. How would this be scientifically feasible? Where would this magic come from? How could we be other than universe? How could we be separate from it? Why do we bother pretending that we are something different, when its so obvious we are a part of it? So no. I can not say that I believe in no kind of God whatsoever. I consider this my universe, as I have no other to consider. I consider this my world because its where everybody I ever knew of, and everybody I know is from. While an antropomorphic god and literal heaven and hell make no sense to me. While having faith in an invisible hand reaching down and pulling you out of danger is stupid. There is nothing whatsoever suspect about recognizing ones attachment to that which came before, and that which will be after. There is nothing whatsoever suspect about recognizing you are tiny to the universe and immense to the quark. That you are something in the middle, and belong to the same reality that the quark and the universe do. Consciousness is not supernatural. It is a scientifically recognized true thing. This means that somewhere between quarks and universes, consciousness can exist. With no magic required. What ever we did, however we managed it, we grabbed life and consciousness from a universe, otherwise tending toward entropy. Silly to think that we did it by ourselves, and somehow ourselves are supernatural in kind. Silly to think anything other than the universe had anything to do with it. Which leaves only reality to be in and of, with nowhere else to come from, and nowhere else to go. Why that does not smell like God to you. Why that does not feel like God to you is what you need to explain to me. No sky pixies? Sure. No sky pixies. Nothing like God? Give me a break. Regards, TAR2

The reason the 600 rode into the valley of death was not a favor they were doing for an imaginary God. It was duty to their countrymen. My intent was to show that our faith in each other, and our duty to those that survive us, is a real thing. Looks a little like God, but I didn't think it looked enough like God for you to think I was arguing for the existence of God, much less that I thought Jeremy Glick was praying. I do not even know Jeremy Glick's religious affilliation or lack there of. I have been, and still am arguing for the real people and the real principles and the real associations of people, to be the "actual" components of our consciences and our faith in an afterlife. NOT OUR PERSONNAL life, but the life of that which we are now, while alive, a part. Allegorically God, but in realtity, everybody else, life on Earth, the Planet itself, the Sun that warms us. This all is real stuff. I am not talking about any sky pixies. Just saying that its easy to mistake one for the other, reality itself being so awesome and godlike. I am completely with the atheist camp in suggesting that if a voice in your head is telling you to do something, you best check with a friend or relative or a doctor or a bartender or someone, before you listen to the voice. If its a sensible thing the voice is telling you to do, then do the sensible thing anything and ignore the voice. If it sounds like a crazy thing, check with the rest of us, before you proceed. But there IS the rest of us to consider. There are the flowers and the trees and the little bunnies to care about. There IS dance and song and poetry, beauty and wonder to enjoy. There IS pain and suffering, illness and destruction to guard against, from other men and from natural forces. Nature doesn't care one way or the other about us. We will suffice as the judge and guide for each other. Regards, TAR2 Iggy, Yes I think I have figured out, that we need something like a God. Regards, TAR2 But with that, I have also figured out, that we actually have objective reality to judge us, in the person of each other, along the lines of a humanist thought. And that we actually have nature built into us, that we can also count on, and have faith in. (Metabolism, the beating of our heart, healing, reproduction and the like, that we can do very well without knowing the details, or thinking about it.) And when you put the two things together, it covers a lot of the things God is supposed to be in charge of. So either those things are what people are attributing to God consciously, or those things are what people are attributing to God unconsciously. If it is true that an anthropomorphic God is impossible, which it is, then the only things we can put our faith in, are those real things that are left. Like each other. Like the rising of the Sun. Like birth and renewal. Like love and trust and fortitude. Like the smile of a child. Regards, TAR2

John and Iggy, You misunderstood my intent. I was trying to imply that he had faith in his family and his friends and his country. I said nothing about God. I told the story to say he exactly did NOT need an imaginary God to believe in. There is plenty of real stuff to believe in that trumps even your own life. I was saying exactly what you guys are saying in your responses. Regards, TAR2