# Atheism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 4, 2013, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288 "2013-02-04T04:58:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 32
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/621 "2013-04-21T00:47:44Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > You really don’t know me at all. Too bad. I know your works. I know that you are unable or unwilling to logically support your views, at least here on this board. I know that _wishing_, which is what prayer is, is not only useless, but it actually hurts because it wastes time you could spend to actually _do something_. I know that you are probably not a bad person. You don’t seem like one. I just think you have a set of beliefs that are utter rubbish. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/622 "2013-04-21T01:12:24Z")
Before his long absence, wasn’t **lekatt** segregated into his one witnessing thread? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/623 "2013-04-21T03:09:27Z")
> [@Kaviik](#): > > Is there any evidence that time is eternal? > I only ask because there is no “before the BB” since time came into being after the initial change of states. That is kind of nonsensical. “Time came into being”, think about that. How can something happen, except within the context of time? Events are temporal, meaning they are measured in terms of time. Before “time came into being”, no events could have happened. The language is a constraint that makes it extremely difficult to discuss things outside the bounds of what we can readily understand, try to use words in a way that fails to generate needless paradoxes and conundra, or at least address them directly. ---
**Author:** ![Razncain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9d8465/32.png) [@Razncain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Razncain)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/624 "2013-04-21T14:57:19Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Did they offer an alternate vow? No, or at least none that we were made aware of. Sorry, late in response, was out of state for a couple of days. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/625 "2013-04-21T16:05:55Z")
[Apparently they are supposed to in Texas.](https://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/939/939.F2d.1207.90-8660.html) ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2013, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/626 "2013-04-21T23:00:03Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “Do you swear to tell the truth, so help you God” > “Yes” > (later)“About your testimony, sir-Did you or did you not swear to tell the truth, so help you God?” > “Yes” > “Isn’t it true that you are an atheist, and thus do not believe in God at all?” > “Ummm…yes.” > “So when you swore to tell the truth, you were lying, weren’t you?” The question is whether or not I swear to tell the truth. Whether or not God will help me is not part of the question. Or is my English bad? ---
**Author:** ![Kaviik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f05b48/32.png) [@Kaviik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaviik)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/627 "2013-04-26T23:23:22Z")
> [@For You](#): > > That is kind of nonsensical. “Time came into being”, think about that. How can something happen, except within the context of time? Events are temporal, meaning they are measured in terms of time. Before “time came into being”, no events could have happened. > > The language is a constraint that makes it extremely difficult to discuss things outside the bounds of what we can readily understand, try to use words in a way that fails to generate needless paradoxes and conundra, or at least address them directly. Yes I do think about time coming into being. I agree it can be confusing, but it is a reality. IMO it is important to keep in mind that time was not always part of reality. Oh and yes an event did take place which then caused time to became part of reality. That event was the change of states; the Big Bang event. Yes I agree we have language problems, as we do want to say BEFORE TIME, and IMO it is an error to think there is a ‘before time’; kind like there is no North of North, there is no Before Time. It is also an important point when Atheists discuss Theist Gods who theists claim their god is not part of time, yet is patient and waits for things. I think it is important because when we realize the Theist God is having a vengeful and angry moment, that moment is its entire existence since it is eternal and not part of a time line. The fact is that there was a point that Time did not exist and then Time did exist; IMO it is important to recognize this fact. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2013, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/628 "2013-04-27T04:12:08Z")
> [@Kaviik](#): > > Yes I do think about time coming into being. I agree it can be confusing, but it is a reality. IMO it is important to keep in mind that time was not always part of reality. . . . Like Relativity and Quantum Theory, it really can’t be described in common-sense terms, but can be described with marvelous precision mathematically, and, better, is corroborated by observation. And, as you note, theologians make the same kinds of claims about God, and I will add, without the advantage of observational corroboration. If I say, “The Big Bang was outside of the conventional time stream,” they scoff…but then they say, “God is outside of the conventional time stream” – and they don’t have a microwave background to point to. They got nothin’. We got somethin’, even if it isn’t satisfying to our earth-bound common-sense. Until the day that they offer a mathematical description of God, they’re way behind in the debate. ---
**Author:** ![pjnlsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e8c25b/32.png) [@pjnlsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjnlsn)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/629 "2013-04-28T08:38:30Z")
> [@Kaviik](#): > > Yes I do think about time coming into being. I agree it can be confusing, but it is a reality. IMO it is important to keep in mind that time was not always part of reality. > > Oh and yes an event did take place which then caused time to became part of reality. That event was the change of states; the Big Bang event. > > Yes I agree we have language problems, as we do want to say BEFORE TIME, and IMO it is an error to think there is a ‘before time’; kind like there is no North of North, there is no Before Time. > > It is also an important point when Atheists discuss Theist Gods who theists claim their god is not part of time, yet is patient and waits for things. > > I think it is important because when we realize the Theist God is having a vengeful and angry moment, that moment is its entire existence since it is eternal and not part of a time line. > > The fact is that there was a point that Time did not exist and then Time did exist; IMO it is important to recognize this fact. The Big Bang is more likely and supported by empirical evidence than that there was some abstract ‘entity’ involved, or that it exists at all. ---
**Author:** ![donnie\_darko](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@donnie\_darko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/donnie_darko)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/630 "2013-04-30T21:07:32Z")
> [@koufax](#): > > I am trying to find videos on you tube or anywhere for that matter that can explain how someone can actually be a REAL atheist. > > All I can seem to find is “atheists” who point out how ridiculous most religious teachings are (which I completely agree with) but they don’t seem to explain how they believe that matter just came out of nothing with no cause. > > I consider myself a Deist because I cannot get rid of the belief that something caused all of this, even though it doesn’t care about its creation and allows everything to happen randomly. > > So, are there, in fact REAL atheists who believe that life and matter just occurred out of nothing or are these “atheists” like me and are in fact Deists? I don’t think there’s a “cause” since the flow of time and causality seems to only be in our minds but I think the Universe is intelligent. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/631 "2013-04-30T22:29:50Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “Do you swear to tell the truth, so help you God” > “Yes” > (later)“About your testimony, sir-Did you or did you not swear to tell the truth, so help you God?” > “Yes” > “Isn’t it true that you are an atheist, and thus do not believe in God at all?” > “Ummm…yes.” > “So when you swore to tell the truth, you were lying, weren’t you?” I wrote something almost frighteningly close to this in an answer on a constitutional law exam last year - and won the book prize for that class. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/632 "2013-04-30T22:33:40Z")
> [@donnie\_darko](#): > > I don’t think there’s a “cause” since the flow of time and causality seems to only be in our minds but I think the Universe is intelligent. That’s silly, as well as impossible. The universe is a huge mass of matter that isn’t organized in a way that would allow intelligence; and even if it was organized it’s simply too big to be intelligent; it’s too large for its parts to coordinate thanks to the speed of light. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/633 "2013-05-01T03:07:29Z")
Well, though, one could argue that the human brain is too large for its parts to coordinate at the speed of neural impulses – a fairly low speed, all in all. That’s why the brain does a lot of sub-processing locally. Why we have two cerebral hemispheres, for instance, coordinating somewhat coarsely through the whatnot (corpus callosum?) Visual information is processed one place, auditory information somewhere else, etc. I agree with you, let me reassure you! The cosmos does not have a communications network of any sort, and thus the information cannot be processed. The universe cannot be “intelligent” and the idea is dumb. But the size of it all isn’t a fatal objection by itself; it might process information very, very slowly! ---
**Author:** ![pjnlsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e8c25b/32.png) [@pjnlsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pjnlsn)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/634 "2013-05-02T01:18:35Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, though, one could argue that the human brain is too large for its parts to coordinate at the speed of neural impulses – a fairly low speed, all in all. > > That’s why the brain does a lot of sub-processing locally. Why we have two cerebral hemispheres, for instance, coordinating somewhat coarsely through the whatnot (corpus callosum?) Visual information is processed one place, auditory information somewhere else, etc. > > I agree with you, let me reassure you! The cosmos does not have a communications network of any sort, and thus the information cannot be processed. The universe cannot be “intelligent” and the idea is dumb. > > But the size of it all isn’t a fatal objection by itself; it might process information very, very slowly! Yes, well, good 😛 But for the record, the brain processes locally because there are discrete structures which do the processing, not because communication between different parts of the brain are so slow that it wouldn’t work. The brain passes information between different areas as a matter of course; Complex mental tasks might involve two parts of the brain working together, or maybe similar structures in each hemisphere would cooperate to process the same information. The only significant barrier in the brain is communication between hemispheres, and only when there is a lot of information to be processed. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/635 "2013-05-02T01:52:56Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > But the size of it all isn’t a fatal objection by itself; it might process information very, very slowly! Actually it can’t; the universe is literally too big for information to pass from one end to the other at all (assuming it even has a finite size), not just pass slowly. The expansion of the universe and the lightspeed limit ensures that signals from any particular part of the universe physically can’t reach a sufficiently distant part. A “sufficiently advanced” society might be able to construct a slow thinking “intelligent galaxy” I suppose, but a universal mind is impossible barring FTL communications. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/636 "2013-05-02T01:57:53Z")
> [@pjnlsn](#): > > But for the record, the brain processes locally because there are discrete structures which do the processing, not because communication between different parts of the brain are so slow that it wouldn’t work. The brain passes information between different areas as a matter of course; Complex mental tasks might involve two parts of the brain working together, or maybe similar structures in each hemisphere would cooperate to process the same information. In fact it appears that communication between processing centers in itself is an important part of reasoning. Consider [this](http://today.uci.edu/iframe.php?p=/news/release_detail_iframe.asp?key=1261): > [@](#): > > In general, men have approximately 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, and women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence than men. Gray matter represents information processing centers in the brain, and white matter represents the networking of – or connections between – these processing centers. Given that men are not 6.5 times more intelligent than women, the logical implication is that one can get a lot of intellectual horsepower out of those connections between processing centers. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/637 "2013-05-02T02:36:24Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Actually it can’t; the universe is literally too big for information to pass from one end to the other at all (assuming it even has a finite size), not just pass slowly. The expansion of the universe and the lightspeed limit ensures that signals from any particular part of the universe physically can’t reach a sufficiently distant part. > > A “sufficiently advanced” society might be able to construct a slow thinking “intelligent galaxy” I suppose, but a universal mind is impossible barring FTL communications. Oops! Yes, correct! I overlooked this. (And this isn’t even counting expansionary phase issues, such as the vastly extended cosmos beyond any possible speed-of-light horizon.) As the nice lady liked to say, “Never mind!” ---
**Author:** ![Khendrask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3e96dc/32.png) [@Khendrask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khendrask)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/638 "2013-05-02T11:17:01Z")
> [@koufax](#): > > I consider myself a Deist because I cannot get rid of the belief that something caused all of this, even though it doesn’t care about its creation and allows everything to happen randomly. I have absolutely no such belief, if you intend to mean that something caused all of this for a reason, implying intelligence or forethought. However, yes, I agree that something caused all of the universe, pure random chance. Not exactly anything I’d waste time worshiping (except maybe at a casino). ---
**Author:** ![Moon\_Meyers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Moon\_Meyers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moon_Meyers)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/639 "2013-05-10T13:14:53Z")
Read Nargajuna — no primary cause ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288/640 "2013-05-10T14:04:53Z")
> [@Moon\_Meyers](#): > > Read Nargajuna — no primary cause Why don’t you give us the basics? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288.md?page=31) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheism/649288.md?page=33)