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Forums - General - ‘You’ve made your choice’: Man shares dad’s brutal letter disowning him for being gay

happydolphin on 11 August 2012
Pimp3k said:

You're only assuming that there isn't an end to chain of questions. The simple fact that we are capable of formulating a question shows how far have we really  come. After all Scientific method starts with a question!

:) It was a hypothetical exercise. Try again, you'll see what I mean.

I'm not assuming it's the only eventuality, I tried to make sure to say it was one of three eventualities (a question with no answer, a final answer or an infinite chain of questions).

The exercise I offered to Jay was to say, okay let's try one of those 3. How does that fit with the atheistic sentiment/quest? I was interested in his PoV.



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happydolphin on 11 August 2012
Scoobes said:

If you look at the results of that quest (e.g. vehicles, elimination of disease, antibiotics, life-saving surgery, biro pens, forensics... video games ) then doesn't that make it a legitimate quest?

If the quest continues to help and improve our lives, then I see no reason why the quest couldn't be considerred legitimate or worthwhile.

True :) In terms of progress this is all legit. I was talking more from the standpoint of answering the deeper questions such as the origin of life and the meaning of life, and the question people have been asking since the dawn of time "how did it all come to be?". This ties back into Runa's intial comment iirc.

@Zappykins. With the little knowledge I have of Hitler, I can assure you he was not following the word of God in any way. His quest was in the name of hatred, racism, supremacy and an aryan utopia.

Read this -> http://net-abbey.org/hitler-as-god.htm



Pimp3k on 11 August 2012
happydolphin said:
Pimp3k said:

You're only assuming that there isn't an end to chain of questions. The simple fact that we are capable of formulating a question shows how far have we really  come. After all Scientific method starts with a question!

:) It was a hypothetical exercise. Try again, you'll see what I mean.

I'm not assuming it's the only eventuality, I tried to make sure to say it was one of three eventualities (a question with no answer, a final answer or an infinite chain of questions).

The exercise I offered to Jay was to say, okay let's try one of those 3. How does that fit with the atheistic sentiment/quest? I was interested in his PoV.

I wouldn't go as far as say there are 3 eventualities, I would say there is actually just one. That is, after (in)finite chain of questions we'll either have an answer or not. But our goal is to find an answer... If we get a wrong answer or no answer as that, then we have to go back to our hypotesis and start anew. Our incabilities to find an answer shouldn't stop us at trying to find one. Or our incabilities to find one shouldnt mean that there isn't one. We are just not smart and advanaced to see it right now.



happydolphin on 11 August 2012
Pimp3k said:

I wouldn't go as far as say there are 3 eventualities, I would say there is actually just one. That is, after (in)finite chain of questions we'll either have an answer or not. But our goal is to find an answer... If we get a wrong answer or no answer as that, then we have to go back to our hypotesis and start anew. Our incabilities to find an answer shouldn't stop us at trying to find one. Or our incabilities to find one shouldnt mean that there isn't one. We are just not smart and advanaced to see it right now.

@bold. I know. It's an abstract, more mathematical question than anything, with a philosophical intent.

You said the outcome to the quest for answers is and (in)finite chain of questions that will either have an answer or not.

So, the possibilities are:

1) Chain of answers with a question with no answer, unanswerable, ever.

2) Chain of answers with a question with a final answer, certainty.

3) Chain of answers with a question with an answer, that leads to another question (infinite).

With that, try to revise your point. I'm not saying stop searching, I'm asking Jay, in case 3, how does one deal with that possibility, philosophically.



Runa216 on 11 August 2012
Player1x3 said:
Runa216 said:
Player1x3 said:
Further point Runa, im not gonna further discuss on whether or not atheism or religion are illogical because it has nothing to do with the topic. Im sorry if i accidentally started the topic

No you're not, you bring it up in every topic that even remotely relates to religion or religious intolerance. 

And your image is even more ignorant because anyone with a brain sees the illogical nature of the fallacious argument on it.  What you just did was a strawman fallacy.  Congratulations.  You fail at logic. 


Nah, i just bring it up when i see irreligious intolerance. That's something inseparable from you

d'awww, you think I care about some bogus pseudoscience just becuase people believe really hard!  



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Runa216 on 11 August 2012
Player1x3 said:
Nem said:
Jay520 said:
happydolphin said:

1.) Currently the answer is we don't know, just like for the believer the answer about how God is the origin of all things material is "we don't know". However, deists believe God is the end of the chain of questions.

2.) For an atheist, is there an end to the chain of questions, or do we just not know?

3.) Also, if there is an end to the chain of questions, would it be a fully naturalistic explanation, completely self sustaining? Something like, in exceptional cases, matter and energy can be spontaneously created out of nothing, for absolutely no reason?


1.) The difference is that athiests don't believe in any entity or idea without justification. There is evidence that suggests the Big Bang has occured. That is justified. However, there is no justified explanation for why the Big Bang occured. There are an inifinite amount of possibilities for why the Big Bang started and there's no justification to put faith into any of them. Simply assuming God is the source with no justification is premature narrow-minded. It hinders plenty of other, equally justified, possibilities. If we simply blamed God for everything we couldn't understand, we would have missed out on a lot scientific breakthroughs.

2.) I don't understand your question. Are you asking "Is there an answer to the chain of questions?" Well yes, of course there are answers. But, with our current knowledge and technology, we don't have those answers. It's better to accept your ignorance than place blind faith into something and be most likely wrong.

3.) Again, I don't know. And I'm probably not intelligent enough to even comprehend the comlpexities of the creation of the universe. 

Some things are just unexplainable and should just be left unexplainable. By using God to explain the unexplainable, you really create a lapse in logic. What you're saying is "I can't explain something...therefore, I can explain it (God)".


Indeed. When will people realise that god just cant exist. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Say even if god was the one that made the big ben, what made god? God just is? Then why cant the universe just be aswell? It was born from nothing, the struggle between matter and anti-mater. God is an uncessary step, there is no point to it. Matter or anti-matter win and the rest of the laws of the universe come into place as the particles interact with each other. As much as we wish there would be a god, there really is no sense to that possibility.

But, here on earth we have a bunch of clowns discriminating, murdering in the name of something that doesnt exist. Its nothing but collective insanity when it gets to that point. The only god there is is chance. The chance that made this star called sun the size it is and this rock called earth forming just at the right distance. Just the same chance that is gonna bring the andromeda galaxy coming crashing down on the milky way or any stray comet or celestial body or gamma burst that can fry us at any time. The gods are us, born in the blink of an eye out of pure chance, with a chance to outgrow the laws of the universe to survive past the blink of luck that spawned us.

So...much...fail...in one post...this post gave me cancer

you don't get the priveledge of saying that.  you just in a recent post likened homosexuality to a horrible birth defect, you no longer deserve a voice if that's the kind of thing you honestly think.  



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Scoobes on 11 August 2012
happydolphin said:
Pimp3k said:

I wouldn't go as far as say there are 3 eventualities, I would say there is actually just one. That is, after (in)finite chain of questions we'll either have an answer or not. But our goal is to find an answer... If we get a wrong answer or no answer as that, then we have to go back to our hypotesis and start anew. Our incabilities to find an answer shouldn't stop us at trying to find one. Or our incabilities to find one shouldnt mean that there isn't one. We are just not smart and advanaced to see it right now.

@bold. I know. It's an abstract, more mathematical question than anything, with a philosophical intent.

You said the outcome to the quest for answers is and (in)finite chain of questions that will either have an answer or not.

So, the possibilities are:

1) Chain of answers with a question with no answer, unanswerable, ever.

2) Chain of answers with a question with a final answer, certainty.

3) Chain of answers with a question with an answer, that leads to another question (infinite).

With that, try to revise your point. I'm not saying stop searching, I'm asking Jay, in case 3, how does one deal with that possibility, philosophically.

In the case of 3, you're missing one detail that I think is fairly important. How does one know the answer they've got is the correct one? As we gain more information, it's completely possible that we'll disprove a previous answer we thought was correct and result in a more accurate answer (and a greater number of questions). It's a state of perpetual improvement.




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happydolphin on 11 August 2012
Scoobes said:
happydolphin said:

@bold. I know. It's an abstract, more mathematical question than anything, with a philosophical intent.

You said the outcome to the quest for answers is and (in)finite chain of questions that will either have an answer or not.

So, the possibilities are:

1) Chain of answers with a question with no answer, unanswerable, ever.

2) Chain of answers with a question with a final answer, certainty.

3) Chain of answers with a question with an answer, that leads to another question (infinite).

With that, try to revise your point. I'm not saying stop searching, I'm asking Jay, in case 3, how does one deal with that possibility, philosophically.

In the case of 3, you're missing one detail that I think is fairly important. How does one know the answer they've got is the correct one? As we gain more information, it's completely possible that we'll disprove a previous answer we thought was correct and result in a more accurate answer (and a greater number of questions). It's a state of perpetual improvement.

Yeah, good catch. I was going at a higher level, and just considering that even had the wrong answer been found the right answer would either eventually be found, never be found or be found to be the final answer (one of the 3 above). So it's just a minor bifurcation to the logic that could just be ignored, but it's good to mention regardless.



Torillian on 11 August 2012
happydolphin said:

Yeah, good catch. I was going at a higher level, and just considering that even had the wrong answer been found the right answer would either eventually be found, never be found or be found to be the final answer (one of the 3 above). So it's just a minor bifurcation to the logic that could just be ignored, but it's good to mention regardless.


Even if there is no final answer, that wouldn't stop me from trying.  That's a big part of being a scientist is the joy of finding new knowledge just for the sake of it.  Learning things in school that are already known is fun and all, but proving something that was previously unknown is the true joy of science.  So I guess I'd say that philisophically it wouldn't bother me in the slightest, just gives us more things to find out eventually.

Honestly I don't see why those who believe in god have any issue with the Big Bang theory or any other science based theory to the origina of the universe, all you have to do is say God was behind it and you're golden.  If you find comfort in the concept of a god then more power to you, I find it highly likely I'll do the same when I get older, whether it's hypocritical or not.  Death is a scary thing and whatever people want to use to make peace with it is fine by me.  



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happydolphin on 11 August 2012
Torillian said:

Even if there is no final answer, that wouldn't stop me from trying.  That's a big part of being a scientist is the joy of finding new knowledge just for the sake of it.  Learning things in school that are already known is fun and all, but proving something that was previously unknown is the true joy of science.  So I guess I'd say that philisophically it wouldn't bother me in the slightest, just gives us more things to find out eventually.

Honestly I don't see why those who believe in god have any issue with the Big Bang theory or any other science based theory to the origina of the universe, all you have to do is say God was behind it and you're golden.  If you find comfort in the concept of a god then more power to you, I find it highly likely I'll do the same when I get older, whether it's hypocritical or not.  Death is a scary thing and whatever people want to use to make peace with it is fine by me.  

@bold. I know. But if you were trying and there was no final answer, would you search had you known there was none at the end? That's a bit the spirit of the question. Since as Jay said "we don't know", the what if question is important because if you can cover all the scenarios philosophically, there too you're golden.

As for the big bang theory, I don't have a full opinion on it but I don't disbelieve it. The universe is expanding so it would only make sense it's moving from a central point. I have little problem with science in general, I love science.

For the rest I fully agree, it was really just a philosophical exercise to help answer Runa's post on it, upon coming back to it.