Villain

What is it that you mean when you say God or gods don't exist?

I suggest a philosophical forum if you're interested in religious discussion, there are too many people with petty agendas for that here.

Would life without any challenge be better? If everything was 'good' or easy or pleasant would those things lose their value? If you describe the environment as imperfect, how could it be otherwise, even 'utopia' would be imperfect if it was too perfect. I assume that you're not much of a Jackson Pollock fan then.

Ofcourse it does: I think, therefore I am -> I do not think, therefore I am not-> I do not think that I am broken, therefore I am not broken.

Good question perhaps you could relate it to point 2. of the argument. Would the set 'all' need to include 'space-time' as a member in order for 'space-time' to exist? If so can a set be within a member of itself?

Did we ever define 'god' in this thread?

How is this relevant to the OP? Where is the use of sets in the OP? Regardless of the relevance, the definition that you provided in your LMGTFY link means that inside my house is a proper subset of my house within the ordinary use of language, the subset 'inside my house' that you've used doesn't mean inside my house.

Why do you feel the need to troll in the Religion section, first post #41 of 'Is believing a choice' and now this and I say troll because the standard definition of 'inside' or 'within' clearly do not apply to the explanation of your house inside itself analogy?

For clarity please provide the definition of 'within' and 'inside' that you're using in the above explanation.

The premise states that all that exists, exists within space-time. Something cannot exist within itself, ergo space-time does not exist. The house example merely splits your house into house (a) within house (b) and we lose the meaning of house.

If 2. is true then space-time cannot exist.

The 'laws' which we know exist and can never not be so?

Is this suppose to be political or religious?

I apologise, I just thought that the post was so convincing that I had no choice.

Is it that you suffer from megalomania?

I would rather define belief as: action without the security of certainty. Believing something is true or has relevance doesn't mean that there is no chance that it is not true. Even what we describe as knowledge is considered a belief or not even held at such a position by a radical sceptic (which is probably the most honest and truthful position to hold but not very useful). There is no faith in acting from certainty, faith is acting while being aware of the obvious lack of knowledge and accepting the consequences of your actions. Faith does not alleviate you from what you do, it does not mean that you get to live in an imaginary world, it is having conviction to live as to what you believe is the truth. It is knowing that God might not exist and knowing that God might be a product of evolution and an easy way of giving yourself a sense of external security. Acting without security is the recipe for both greatness and complete and utter failure as much in science as any other aspect of life. What we take for granted as products of science were from men and women acting from lack of knowledge. Those that hold belief as infallible are as deluded as those that hold knowledge with the same regard.

I'm not sure I do. I think there is a big difference between not being compelled by something (what I described as no belief) and wrestling with something (almost like a pros and cons list) and ultimately coming to a decision of belief or non-belief. I don't really have anything else to add to this, I had thought that I covered this in the post that you were quoting. And how is that not a choice? If you choose not to believe, how would you describe the action of someone who did believe?

Not within our ordinary use of language.

For the purpose of this discussion I'd like to offer the following definitions (I realise that you might not hold the same definitions): Belief is an active position, no belief is no action, non-belief is an active position of not believing. If by atheist, you mean no belief, then fine I don't see the need for any argument. You would just not hold a position of belief. Belief would need some reason, whatever it is. If however you want to represent a position of non-belief then an argument against belief would be needed and that one is invalid. I'm not expressing an opinion against non-belief, I'm merely pointing out it's not a valid argument. I have no belief in Zeus, Thor or Apollo. I don't get the point of the question then, are you saying that no adult could believe that you have an elephant in your yard? It's possible to have an elephant in your yard. If I chose be believe that you were telling the truth then I would believe that you had an elephant in your yard. I need only to judge your character in order to choose belief or not. How is choice not an option, unless it's an impossibility?

At first I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but since you mention 'win the prize' instead of determine the truth, I can't help thinking that you are insinuating that people are only religious because they want a prize. Would you mind clarifying?

If atheists are basing their decision on a deity/creator on the likely hood of a creator using the assumption that the universe is knowable and that such a creator would have to conform to that assumption, then I hope they at least recognise the invalidity of such an argument. It bares a striking resemblance to: the universe could only work under the conditions it's in, those conditions are unlikely, therefore the likeliness of a designer are almost inevitable.

I think the environment has an ability to influence us although influence in itself seems the very choice that we are talking about. The environment can influence in two ways, the first being the immediate but within that immediate influence there are also consequences of our previous environmental influences in our decision process (experience). I can control the kind of experience and value that I impose on my previous experience and along with those use reason/logic to decide on a position of belief. The total of all of this when looked at retrospectively makes me think of determinism, as it looks like a domino effect of experience playing on experience in each case I'm only ever going to pick one option and if that option influences my next choice in such a way that I would always pick the same option in an alternate yet identical universe then it seems like an illusion of choice.

My point from the last post was that the concept of free will could not be one of ultimate free will as that would become meaningless. Saying that there are boundaries on free will doesn't imply that free will doesn't exist at all. When we look at others they seem to move and choose from within themselves and not from some external source. From that point one would expect the person to have an inner clockwork of some sort. Describing it as such and such doesn't make it more or less them. We might perceive our existence through the concious mind but that doesn't automatically mean we are only our concious mind. When you look in the mirror do you think 'this body that I am stuck in is getting old' or is it 'I'm getting old'? All my choices are mine, my definition of what I am might have to change though. If our concious mind controls everything then the more we learn about ourselves the more we will change from being what we once called ourselves. A simple example would be manipulating neurotransmitters, we can make a decision to add a substance that is likely to change how we decide in the future i.e. what we consider as the concious mind manipulating itself. I think that alone indicates the complexity of the mind. Choice or illusion of choice is probably dependent on how either is defined. I would say that we have choice when we consider ourselves as ourselves, but perhaps only illusion of choice from a completely objective position (determinism perhaps). I assume this is what iNow is talking about: http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110831/full/477023a.html

The problem with one is that it might freely change it's beliefs to believe that it doesn't have the ability to freely believe, in which case it might believe that it is an entity called jp255 .