Still no atheist logic being shown here

[sonoman]

1) explain how human beings as the successful top species in the food chain, successfully meeting every environmental challenge which means each evolutionary advance has been successful, come to have their brains hardwired to receive and process spiritual phenomena if spiritual phenomena is non-existent?

Humans have become the top of the food chain due to our intelligence, and the development of culture. Culture in it’s most basic form, I would say, is the set of behaviors which allow many organisms to co-exist together and thrive for the support of all individuals. This is accomplished through communication. What are we communicating to eachother? Patterns that we notice in the environment. Hoof-prints = prey. Water may lead to edible plants, tall grass shifting against the wind may indicate an animal in hiding.


These are natural patterns that we observe, then layer an additional communication layer on top of to encrypt the information to be decompressed by the listener. When I type “Dog” that means something different to you than “lion”. Some irregularities are out there of course.


one of these is a dogg, the other a lion.







But anyway, one of our most successful traits is the identification of patterns and to create narratives that explain to us, and to others what those patterns mean for our survival.

We are such good pattern seekers that it leads to false positives.

http://www.booktalk.org/a-million-cause ... t8841.html?

Which means we are pre-disposed to seeing intent. Why? Because paranoia saves more lives than ambivalence.

The guy who’s ready to run every time he hears a twig snap might look like a fool 99 times out of a hundred, but on that one time when it was a bear, he’s got a head start while you are still laughing at him.


And so when things happen that are not readily explained we attribute stories to them. The more mysterious the event, the more outrageous the story we conjure to explain it away. Some of these stories become religion.

You've avoided the elephant in the room. Why would any animal species successfully evolving forms and behavior that have brought it to the top of the food chain and intelligence ever have any reason to attribute supernatural forces to anything? Do lions or tiger or bears worry about spirits when they go about their business of survival? What would lead a mind to think there are invisible forces acting on things in the first place when survival is really a fairly strict discipline for any animal, so again, why are human beings paying so much attention to imaginary forces if there is nothing there?

I've heard the argument before, not posted here so far, that religion is the way ancient peoples bond together, but that too begs the question, why use invisible spirits to do this? Story-telling binds people together, so does music, so does eating in common, so does trading in trade fairs, there are other ways human beings form bonding mechanisms, so why use supposedly non-existent forces? Who would be the first to believe such a wild thing if Joe Cro-Magnon tells his clan he's had a spiritual encounter? Would they look at him like he was nuts if he didn't see a cave bear or smilodon or fall on his head and still reported meeting Something? The archeological record says no, Joe Cro-Magnon would be there mixing paints to paint his experience on the cave walls with full approval of the rest of the clan. As they all shared spiritual consciousness ability.

2) explain why there is at least 40,000 years of human beings paying great amounts of attention to these same supposedly non-existent forces if it is a delusional state of mind shared by the vast majority of human beings still today?

For the vast majority of history we were hunter gatherers. We were subsistence livers. We did not gather excess. We had no place to rest. We were immediately concerned with where we would drink fresh water, where we would find food, and where we could shelter from the hazards of the wild environment. In these circumstances there was little time available to conduct rigorous experiments to get to the bottom of things.


Eventually we caught on to farming. This lead to excess of food, and the break-up of labor. It meant that not everyone needed to be immediately concerned with where the food would come from, or where to shelter their family. It left people with time on their hands. Communication gets better, writing begins to develop. Ideas are passed more easily from generation to generation, and with the establishment of trading comes ideas from across the plain, or across the sea.

Like magic, knowledge that you don’t have to work to acquire yourself is available. This village learns about irrigation by digging ditches, this village learns about crop rotation. Combine them together and both are better off than either apart.

In all this time serious inquiry, rigorous inquiry, was hard to come by. Because the daily pressure to survive was too strenuous, and because the method of passing information was too poor, and provincial. (verbal)

In the last few thousand years though, people have stopped moving so much. We’ve had time to think things through. And nearly as soon as that was possible there have been people who compared experimental results with the magical stories people invented to explain the things they could not easily explain. And the people who learned from reality told the people who heard the tales that they were wrong.

Now information is easier to come by than ever before. More and more people have access to information gathered by making inquiries into the way the world actually works, rather than just what everyone always assumed about the world, passed generation to generation.

My same argument applies here as above: Why did humans invent spiritual forces in the first place if such are non-existent in natural environment. Fear itself in no way produces spiritual consciousness. What produced the original reasons why human beings spend so much time dealing with supposedly imaginary friends or enemies? It isn't rational to devote human time and energy to non-survival activities so why religion? Why spiritual entities? Why God? In an atheist world where there are no spiritual forces at work, such activity is irrational and would lead to failure at survival in my opinion. Obviously, religious consciousness has not done that at all. And since instead of stopping superstitious nonsense when human life advanced from hunting and gathering to civilizations, religions became even more important in human life. So again, why? If there is nothing there but over-active imaginations?

People still cling to these old stories, for a variety of reasons. Emotional attachment, ignorance, fear of change, indoctrination… But having the real information at hand is having it’s effect. The second largest, and fastest growing demographic in America, for instance, identifies as “non-religious”. Because we don’t have to rely on myths and fairy tales anymore. Because science gives results.

No, we don't have to rely on myths and fairy tales, like King Arthur and Excalibur, not when we have a real tangible Sword of Peace, Paxcalibur, Saif al Salam, Sword of Peace, we can touch in our times.

[Dexter]

Why do you say that when the vast majority of human beings don't agree with you? You have no rational reason not to believe in God based on that logic of the majority of people believing in God unless you are willing to believe the vast majority of human beings are irrational which puts you in a paranoid frame of mind again without rational basis as obviously the majority of human beings are not irrational, otherwise you and I would not be here discussing this issue.

You keep using this numbers argument. But 99.99+% of believers don't believe in the Aquarius Man with the urns and Saturn and the other stuff. Many more people are atheists. So you're undermining your own point. You disagree with most spiritual claims that have ever existed.

[Interbane]

No, we don't have to rely on myths and fairy tales, like King Arthur and Excalibur, not when we have a real tangible Sword of Peace, Paxcalibur, Saif al Salam, Sword of Peace, we can touch in our times.

I like the older fantasy story better than your modern fantasy story. Pulling a sword from a stone with light shining down from above makes for a better story than receiving a sword in the mail then giving it a name. But I wonder what makes you think your fantasy is any more true than theirs. Is it because the epiphanies you had were believed to be divine?

[youkrst]

we have a real tangible Sword of Peace, Paxcalibur, Saif al Salam, Sword of Peace, we can touch in our times.

sounds fascinating, does anyone have a link to this "Sword" or does it mean the Bible or something.

[Chris OConnor]

Atheism doesn’t HAVE answers, it IS the answer.

Simple yet profound.

[sonoman]

Why do you say that when the vast majority of human beings don't agree with you? You have no rational reason not to believe in God based on that logic of the majority of people believing in God unless you are willing to believe the vast majority of human beings are irrational which puts you in a paranoid frame of mind again without rational basis as obviously the majority of human beings are not irrational, otherwise you and I would not be here discussing this issue.

You keep using this numbers argument. But 99.99+% of believers don't believe in the Aquarius Man with the urns and Saturn and the other stuff. Many more people are atheists. So you're undermining your own point. You disagree with most spiritual claims that have ever existed.

I used it to show you how you're thinking illogically when you believe that you're tiny minority viewpoint about a subject matter you have zip experience in and have zero proof to back up your beliefs about, is somehow better than that of the vast majority of humankind. That's illogical.

And you're wrong about the Aquarius Man and other stuff as you forget all about Jesus Christ Superstar and the Age of Aquarius and a whole New Age spiritual movement that outnumbers your atheist one I suspect. And you forget too how universal astrological interest is in the world. Horoscopes are much more read than any Bibles, or Qurans. Just look at the headline Internet news about the millions celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Snake, when snakes, the caduceus being a prime example, were the totem iconic animals of Sumerian Enki who is Canaanite EL who is Saturn. What did Moses lift up in the desert and what did Jesus tell us Christians to do likewise? Year of the Snake begins in the first year of the Age of Aquarius, (the Mayan Calendar synchronized all the End Times of the last Aeon).

[sonoman]

Why do you say that when the vast majority of human beings don't agree with you? You have no rational reason not to believe in God based on that logic of the majority of people believing in God unless you are willing to believe the vast majority of human beings are irrational which puts you in a paranoid frame of mind again without rational basis as obviously the majority of human beings are not irrational, otherwise you and I would not be here discussing this issue.

You keep using this numbers argument. But 99.99+% of believers don't believe in the Aquarius Man with the urns and Saturn and the other stuff. Many more people are atheists. So you're undermining your own point. You disagree with most spiritual claims that have ever existed.

I used it to show you how you're thinking illogically when you believe that you're tiny minority viewpoint about a subject matter you have zip experience in and have zero proof to back up your beliefs about, is somehow better than that of the vast majority of humankind. That's illogical.

And you're wrong about the Aquarius Man and other stuff as you forget all about Jesus Christ Superstar and the Age of Aquarius and a whole New Age spiritual movement that outnumbers your atheist one I suspect. And you forget too how universal astrological interest is in the world. Horoscopes are much more read than any Bibles, or Qurans. Just look at the headline Internet news about the millions celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Snake, when snakes, the caduceus being a prime example, were the totem iconic animals of Sumerian Enki who is Canaanite EL who is Saturn. What did Moses lift up in the desert and what did Jesus tell us Christians to do likewise? Year of the Snake begins in the first year of the Age of Aquarius, (the Mayan Calendar synchronized all the End Times of the last Aeon).

[sonoman]

No, we don't have to rely on myths and fairy tales, like King Arthur and Excalibur, not when we have a real tangible Sword of Peace, Paxcalibur, Saif al Salam, Sword of Peace, we can touch in our times.

I like the older fantasy story better than your modern fantasy story. Pulling a sword from a stone with light shining down from above makes for a better story than receiving a sword in the mail then giving it a name. But I wonder what makes you think your fantasy is any more true than theirs. Is it because the epiphanies you had were believed to be divine?

Really helps, Interbane, if you know what you're talking about. Please read the Story of Paxcalibur at: http://biomystic.org/paxstory.htm, and see that it has its own complex history and remarkable spiritual power acknowledged now by hundreds of Palestinian Christians including top leaders like the Melkite Catholic Archbishop of the Holy Land Dioceses. And unlike Excalibur which exists only as ink markings on pieces of paper remade year after year, Paxcalibur is a real steel and brass and someday golden instrument symbolizing peace that you can touch and hear real people's feelings about it who have seen it's spiritual power. You can't do that with your fantasy Excalibur. So who are you to tell us a fantasy sword is better than a real one? Paxcalibur exists. Excalibur never did. That's a superiority right there that can't be disputed except as prejudiced opinion of someone like yourself who hates the new because its unknown and there's no established protocols for group think about it to fit into, so needs the security blanket familiarity of the old. Meanwhile, history moves on..

[Dexter]

I used it to show you how you're thinking illogically when you believe that you're tiny minority viewpoint about a subject matter you have zip experience in and have zero proof to back up your beliefs about, is somehow better than that of the vast majority of humankind. That's illogical.

Believers are often confused about burden of proof. You are making claims about the universe (I think, or something about astrology). I doubt they are true, because there is no reason to believe them.

And you're wrong about the Aquarius Man and other stuff as you forget all about Jesus Christ Superstar and the Age of Aquarius and a whole New Age spiritual movement that outnumbers your atheist one I suspect. And you forget too how universal astrological interest is in the world. Horoscopes are much more read than any Bibles, or Qurans. Just look at the headline Internet news about the millions celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Snake...

Jesus Christ Superstar? Horoscopes? Chinese New Year? What does that prove?

Lots of people also watch reality shows and listen to Justin Bieber. Lots of people believe the Earth is 10,000 years old and that God cares about the Super Bowl.

[sonoman]

I used it to show you how you're thinking illogically when you believe that you're tiny minority viewpoint about a subject matter you have zip experience in and have zero proof to back up your beliefs about, is somehow better than that of the vast majority of humankind. That's illogical.

Believers are often confused about burden of proof. You are making claims about the universe (I think, or something about astrology). I doubt they are true, because there is no reason to believe them.

And you're wrong about the Aquarius Man and other stuff as you forget all about Jesus Christ Superstar and the Age of Aquarius and a whole New Age spiritual movement that outnumbers your atheist one I suspect. And you forget too how universal astrological interest is in the world. Horoscopes are much more read than any Bibles, or Qurans. Just look at the headline Internet news about the millions celebrating the Chinese New Year of the Snake...

Jesus Christ Superstar? Horoscopes? Chinese New Year? What does that prove?

Lots of people also watch reality shows and listen to Justin Bieber. Lots of people believe the Earth is 10,000 years old and that God cares about the Super Bowl.

It's called "denial" what you've just exhibited as a classic fundamentalist belief system trait. Keep it up. It makes my job here of destroying atheist arguments all that much easier.