Atheists - What drives you?

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@sWozzAres

Empirical observation no longer holds the same position that it once did. Neuroscience demonstrates how you see things that aren’t there, Quantum Theory has the measurement problem putting limits on what you can really know and Superstring theory (most think) is unprovable.

No offense intended, but this is superficial pablum. Empirical observation is just the same as it ever was. Whether it is valued more or less is a qualitative matter, as is the value of valuing it less. Neuroscience demonstrates a lot of things, and has yet to demonstrate others. We didn’t need it to know that we see things that aren’t there (and religion should have taught us that long ago).

In terms of putting limits on things, what is more limiting than religions? They typically suggest that there is in fact one thing: a god. That’s pretty limiting.

You seem more concerned with how religion tells you to behave. To see the similarities you have to shed all that baggage and focus on the fundamental aspects of what they tell “is out there”. That is where science meets religion.

Science doesn’t really meet religion, and religion doesn’t do very well with giving us the why of anything, since it pretty much defaults to “because god, that’s why.”

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

@sWozzAres

Empirical observation no longer holds the same position that it once did. Neuroscience demonstrates how you see things that aren’t there, Quantum Theory has the measurement problem putting limits on what you can really know and Superstring theory (most think) is unprovable.

Whatever neuroscience demonstrates, it does so via empirical methods; the quantum measurement problem is a conceptual one in which we don’t understand the precise mechanism through which a definite observation emerges from a superposed state, and doesn’t put any limits on what we can know; string theory is as unprovable as any scientific theory, of course—the issues it has are related to its falsifiability, and even there, the problem is really just that the tests that could be performed are not achievable with present-day methods, not that there are no in principle tests at all.

[Czarcasm]

@sWozzAres

Religion is much more than that!

Empirical observation no longer holds the same position that it once did. Neuroscience demonstrates how you see things that aren’t there, Quantum Theory has the measurement problem putting limits on what you can really know and Superstring theory (most think) is unprovable.

You seem more concerned with how religion tells you to behave. To see the similarities you have to shed all that baggage and focus on the fundamental aspects of what they tell “is out there”. That is where science meets religion.

Your science seems to be as fuzzy as your religion.

[sWozzAres]

@Hentor_the_Barbarian

In terms of putting limits on things, what is more limiting than religions? They typically suggest that there is in fact one thing: a god. That’s pretty limiting.

Quantum Theory teaches us that there is only one thing, everything is connected and the idea of separateness is a creation of the mind. From this one thing emerges everything - that’s far from limiting

[The_Hamster_King]

@sWozzAres

Religion is much more than that!

No, not really. Religion is a collection of fantasy stories used to justify a moral code.

Some of prefer to take our morality straight, no chaser.

[QuickSilver]

@AnthonyElite

Atheists, the title question essentially asks it all, but I will summarize, what drives you?

Let’s do a little thought experiment (to avoid anyone getting hurt, IRL).

On your next commute to/from work, let Jesus take the wheel. What do you suppose will be the end result? Have you noticed how often you see crosses on the sides of rural roads marking a scene of a fatal accident? Do you suppose it’s because Christians are terrible drivers, or maybe Jesus never passed his road test?..

To summarize: In life, as when in my car, I drive. Why do I drive? Because I’m not covered for unlicensed and uninsured frictional drivers.

Glib analogy? Sure. But I think it sufficient in illustrating the point.

[sWozzAres]

@Half_Man_Half_Wit

…the quantum measurement problem is a conceptual one in which we don’t understand the precise mechanism through which a definite observation emerges from a superposed state, and doesn’t put any limits on what we can know…

This is common misconception surrounding the measurement problem. Your talking about decoherance, a concept that we do understand enough for it to be a satifying solution to collapse of the wave function.

The measurement problem says that you cannot for instance know both the position and momentum of a particle at the same time - not because of any inherant problem with taking the measurement (changing one property while gaining access to the other), but that those properties don’t actually exist until measured - limits on knowledge.

[QuickSilver]

@sWozzAres

Quantum Theory teaches us that there is only one thing, everything is connected and the idea of separateness is a creation of the mind. From this one thing emerges everything - that’s far from limiting

What does Quantum Theory say about god?

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

These references to quantum theory, neuroscience, string theory and the like continue to seem like bumper sticker versions of the actual concepts that are being trimmed in order to serve a particular purpose. They seem distracting and incomplete rather than illuminating and elucidating.

[Human_Action]

It’s called Quantum mysticism. Sadly, religion isn’t headed for the dustbin, it’s just changing into new forms.

[XT]

Sounds like a bunch of convoluted new age claptrap, trying to repackage religion with a veneer (a very thin veneer) of science (well, psudo-scientific sounding horseshit).

[Hentor_the_Barbarian]

@Human_Action

It’s called Quantum mysticism. Sadly, religion isn’t headed for the dustbin, it’s just changing into new forms.

Ah. Okay. I get it. Bodhisattva, won’t you take me by the hand?

[sWozzAres]

@QuickSilver

What does Quantum Theory say about god?

It doesn’t use the word “God”, that’s language for religion not science. It points to a unified field that exhibits God like qualities including omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience etc

[XT]

@sWozzAres

It doesn’t use the word “God”, that’s language for religion not science. It points to a unified field that exhibits God like qualities including omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience etc

:dubious: Tell you what. Show me a principal of quantum theory that ‘exhibits God like qualities including omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience etc’ and you you derive that conclusion from the theory. Feel free to show your work.

[Czarcasm]

@sWozzAres

It doesn’t use the word “God”, that’s language for religion not science. It points to a unified field that exhibits God like qualities including omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience etc

This. Thinking like this is a major part of what drives me as an atheist.

[sWozzAres]

@XT

:dubious: Tell you what. Show me a principal of quantum theory that ‘exhibits God like qualities including omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience etc’ and you you derive that conclusion from the theory. Feel free to show your work.

Really? You can’t see that the unified field is present everywhere (omnipresence)? This doesn’t need deriving, it’s obvious from semantics. :smack:

[Dinsdale]

@AnthonyElite

However I do feel that there is a greater will in the universe, though that forces methods are not understood by myself, and that this life is a trial of some sorts.

See, this I simply do not understand. I don’t mean to be dismissive, but what you are saying makes no sense in my mind. What is this “greater will” you speak of? If you simply mean the laws of physics or somesuch, then I’ll agree with you. But that would be the most ungodlike god imaginable.

And describing life as a trial. Well, I guess I agree that it is a challenge, but not a contest to win entry into someplace else.

I was actually discussing this yesterday with my wife. We were hiking through a state park. The spring ephemerals were all over, trees and bushes were budding out, and the birds were singing like crazy. All around me I saw things that interested me greatly - the different plants - mosses, ferns, horsetails, flowering plants. Trying to identify birds by their songs. We saw a ton of fish heading down a stream towards a larger river - what was going on there? And the rocks in the canyons we were hiking through. How did these limestones form, and how were they lifted up to be where they now are?

Someone could spend their entire life simply studying these couple thousand acres, and keep finding new things to learn. And in the process, they would acquire knowledge that was actually based upon observable, testable reality. I contrast that to someone who reads the Bible or Koran over and over, studying and applying a mythology - Christian or other. To me a belief in a G/god, or a “greater will” - is simply a mythology. Can be entertaining, can provide comfort, but hardly different from a daydream or a fantasy.

I asked my wife why people needed a “purpose” other than trying to decide what constitutes “a good life”, and then working to lead such a life. She did not have an answer. Do you?

Yes, leading a good life (however you define it) can be a trial. But it is worth aspiring towards not because it will gain you admittance to an afterlife. If there is an afterlife (which I doubt) and I am denied admittance despite my efforts to lead the best possible life, well, I’d rather take my chances with that than to lead my life in some way or another in the hopes that that led to some eventual payoff.

How does the saying go - a life well lived is its own reward? That I believe.

[Great_Antibob]

@sWozzAres

Really? You can’t see that the unified field is present everywhere (omnipresence)?

So is Hydrogen. So are neutrinos. I’m not about to call either God.

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

@sWozzAres

The measurement problem says that you cannot for instance know both the position and momentum of a particle at the same time - not because of any inherant problem with taking the measurement (changing one property while gaining access to the other), but that those properties don’t actually exist until measured - limits on knowledge.

Nope, that’s the uncertainty principle, which is very different from the measurement problem.

[QuickSilver]

@sWozzAres

It doesn’t use the word “God”, that’s language for religion not science. It points to a unified field that exhibits God like qualities including omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience etc

Are you talking about a deterministic universe?

If borne out by evidence to be so, how does it necessarily prove the existance of god?