I'm in the middle of it right now. I loved the movie. Can't wait to see how the book differs. Right now they are still receiving and puzzling out the Message.
Contact is pretty good. I liked the movie more, but the book is fun. Sagan's Cosmos changed the way I see the world.
Many people would consider me an atheist. In fact, I'm more of an agnostic or secular humanist, but they're all just labels. It just means I don't rule anything out -- I see beautiful teachings in Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, etc. It does not mean I deny God. It means I accept the possibilities that there may be more than Him. Or different ways of seeing Him. I do believe that complete peace, equanimity and happiness are possible in this very moment. Seeing this moment allows one to touch the universe and see that we aren't separate from the cosmos, from each other, or from God. We don't have to wait for heaven - it's here right now, waiting for our awakening. I understand the concept of faith, and I respect others' spirituality. I guess I just define mine differently. But every person's faith, spirituality and religious convictions, regardless of labels, are built on the very same idea: Hope.
I think Atheism is mainly a rejection of the popular belief in the popular god idea named Tetragrammaton. Spirituality is not exclusive to the belief in one god. Not even close. (American Indian spirituality, Hinduism, Buddhism etc.) Tetragrammaton believers might "appreciate beauty" but they do not truly respect it. Their god is separate from the universe, the cosmos, nature. The Bible claims that Tetragrammaton gave man dominion over the earth and nature. It also claims that man was not born from the earth and is separate from it too. That's why it is so easy for believers of this god to pollute and destroy the earth. It is less than divine. It's beauty is condemned. Here is what atheist Albert Einstein said about recognizing beauty: "A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." So you can think that Tetragrammaton believers are the ones that truly recognize beauty, but really it's the other way around.
Gosh, you make that sound like a cardinal sin. To me, such a statement reflects nothing but wisdom and humility - unless it's a product of intellectual apathy, that is Are you referring to scientific theories? Do consider these three points: 1) They are formulated to accomodate the implications of existing evidence; 2) they can be falsified or reworked as new evidence presents itself; and 3) they are theories - nobody is claiming them as gospel in the first place None of these points are applicable to any religion. I'm technically not an atheist - but I'm close enough for the sake of this discussion. And to be honest, I'm generally not a happy person as well. So you may be right about this, at least
what are their moral standards? Where do they come from? With Religious people you have a text .. a written set of rules you can point to and say . . HEY YOU NOT LIVING BY YOUR MORALS with atheist . .they have no such listing Their Morality seems more mutatable more able to change moment to moment Their morality is more . . . at the moment I'm not saying it is true but I think some see it that way They are probably least trusted because their morality is the least known Rocket River
Dark Matter is a theory too a bunch of scientist have a DEEP BELEIF of this yet. . they have no evidence that it exists basically. . . somethings were not explained in the expansion of the Universe and they plugged in this MYTHICAL Dark matter . . .because. .well it explained everything yet. . . they have no evidence that it even exists. Never been seen . . . never been measure they simply MADE IT UP TO EXPLAIN A DISCREPENCY IN THEIR THEORY it is just a beleif . .. a leap of Faith Yet . . they make fun of and dismiss ideals of God Rocket River
I really do want to understand from any/all atheist out there... How did this world with all the various forms of dependent life get created?
Well if you count Buddhists as atheists, it's like this: The Buddha has taught that when conditions are sufficient things manifest, but to label that manifestation as being is wrong. Also when conditions are not sufficient, things do not manifest, but to label that as non-being is also wrong. Reality is beyond being and non-being, and we need to overcome those notions. The ultimate reality is no beginning and no end
I believe God exists and consider myself a spiritual person but at the same time am turned off by the behavior of organized religion. I can't stand the hypocrisy that goes on under the guise of holiness and haven't been to church for 15 years. What category would people like me fall into?
Interesting article about dark matter, from the National Science Foundation: Darkness Made Visible By looking at galaxies far in the background, and then tracking how gravity deflects their light as it passes through the galaxies clustered in the foreground, the Hubble Space Telescope has mapped out the cluster's dark matter (shown in blue). Credit: Credit: J.-P. Kneib, Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees, Caltech, et al.; ESA; NASA Once again, science has given us a big part of the answer. According to the physicists’ standard model, pretty much everything we can see in the universe is made from the same basic building blocks: elementary particles with names like quark, lepton and gluon. From raindrops to galaxies, it’s all the same stuff. According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity, likewise, a subtle curvature in the fabric of space and time can explain every known effect of gravity: the universal force that pulls apples to the ground and holds the planets in their orbits. Indeed, it’s this curvature that determines how the universe has expanded in the aftermath of the Big Bang and what happens when matter collapses into a black hole. For all their successes, however, the standard model and general relativity leave some serious gaps. In particular, neither one can explain why most of the universe is utterly invisible. Astronomers stumbled onto this fact only a few decades ago, when they began to realize that the stars, galaxies and nebulae they can see through their telescopes are just a tiny fraction of what's actually out there. Far more prevalent is "dark matter": a kind of cosmic ectoplasm that makes itself known only though its immense mass, which produces an equally immense gravitational field. Without that field, individual galaxies like our own Milky Way would fly apart like broken pinwheels, and clusters of galaxies would disperse into the void. In fact, without it, none of those galaxies and clusters would have formed in the first place, and we would not be here to wonder what dark matter is. Meanwhile, in 1998, two independent teams of NSF-supported astronomers announced an even more astonishing discovery: the expansion of the universe isn’t slowing down, as most observers had expected. The expansion is actually speeding up. It is as if some previously unknown force, now known as “dark energy,” is driving the galaxies apart at an ever increasing rate. Moreover, this dark energy is incredibly abundant. According to the best current measurements, ordinary matter accounts for no more than 5 percent of the stuff in the universe, on the average, while dark matter amounts to some 20 percent. Dark energy is 75 percent. The discovery of dark matter and dark energy has electrified the scientific community: here is observational proof that there’s something about fundamental physics we still don’t understand. (Science magazine has a recent review.) In an effort to fill the gap, astronomers are planning a new generation of telescopes, theoreticians are exploring exotic concepts such as superstrings and extra dimensions, and laboratory scientists are deploying a host of new experiments. Among those experiments are searches for new fundamental particles and laws at the soon-to-be-completed Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland; the LIGO gravitational wave detectors; dark matter searches; measurements of ultra-rare particle interactions; cosmic ray observatories; and more. NSF is supporting all of these endeavors, in part or in whole. Indeed, they were among the leading topics at a recent NSF symposium on ground-based astronomy—as was the dark matter/dark energy mystery itself. With luck, we could be on the verge of a radically new picture of the universe, and of the fundamental nature of space, time, matter and energy. http://www.nsf.gov/news/overviews/astronomy/astro_q02.jsp Keep D&D Civil.
Yet the same rationale can't force you to accept the type of God any religion has to offer. I agree. Organized religion can be offsetting, but they don't hold the monopoly to God. I think many atheists who strongly voice against God have perceived some wrong or disillusionment from organized religion. However, this doesn't mean that other atheists have somehow beat evolution as you claim. There's also the possibility that many people don't feel God, but convince themselves that they do. If you can't make it, fake it. Ultimately, if it is an innate and evolved sense, then some self-proclaimed atheists will truly feel the calling of God(s). Yet that journey might not be experienced from someone who blindly adheres to a religion. Happiness isn't a qualifier on the validity of a religion, not from an empirical basis, at least. I think the biggest challenge to an atheist is his conflict with advanced age or illness. Deathbed conversions (gradual or immediate) aren't uncommon. Yet that still doesn't prove anything. <----agnostic
I believe in Evolution. I guess that's enough for the question.... How did the Grand Canyon turn out the way it is today? One drop of water among many for a long time. Evolution's key is the scale of time. Our earth is around 5 billion years according to several radiological dating samples. It might not be exactly 5 billion, but it's far longer than what any Book claims. One theory is that life began 2-4 billion years ago when the earth's atmosphere was completely different and the world was rife with raw energy. There was massive tectonic movements (volcanoes, earthquakes) and the sun's UV rays came unfiltered from an ozone-less atmosphere. This also precludes the theory of panspermia (life from outer space) which gives another 4-6 billion years for life (10 billion is the estimated life of the universe) to evolve independently elsewhere. I've written in several other evolution topics, but the search is down. None of my responses can fully answer your question. Scientists and pre-scientists have struggled with the question for several centuries. A summer school course on evolution or biology could help you much more if you're genuinely interested. I think the MOND theory has a far better chance of withstanding time. Who knows why it works, but it does...
Same thing goes for black holes, evolution, the Big Bang theory.. even Newtonian dynamics and general relativity. Science is not some "word of God", but a process by which we attempt to understand the universe - it should make no pretensions to the contrary. Any scientist who tells you otherwise is misguided
I don't know for sure. And that answer should suffice Like Invisible Fan, I believe in evolution. I trust he is not blind to its flaws, though, and neither am I. There is always something more - and science will keep searching
That could be the case, that people do not know the morality of an atheist. In my case i make my moral standarts, i know what in my opinion is good and what is bad. so far i haven't met anybody who thinks i do not have high moral standarts(altough i would not really care if they did because i have tought about my standarts and i'm happy with them, and one of the most important thing is that you HAVE to respect other people opinions, and beliefs). The problem with using standarts from a holy book, is that it is a book, and there are different ways of intepretating them(see all the radical religious people who for some reason think killing is something their god whants, even though i cannot imagin it is). So i think you should always think yourself about your morality. NewYorker To anwser your question, I am An very happy Atheist. So yes i have met happy atheists(i also know a lot of happy atheists). I cannot explain how the world got to life. But even if i did believe in a god, i could not understand eternity, or what was there before a god. The problem is that we as humans are not smart enough to understand eternity and the beginning and the end of life. I want to enjoy me life, and when it ends IMHO there will be nothing, so i better enjoy now
Even though math was my major, I've taken biology courses, organic chemistry, etc. I haven't taken any evolution classes, but I understand the concept. I do have a hard time believing that all this evolved from _____? I mean we do have evidence that things change over time and we can go pretty far back, but has life that exists today changed all that much from as far back as we can go? We are taller. Animals have changed some. Some are gone. But if you go back to the "beginning", is an alligator that much different than today? It's nose maybe a little, it's feet maybe a little, but I can still see where it came from and it doesn't look like an elephant. How about insects? Birds? Trees? Flowers? Grass? Sea creatures? And where did they all come from? Amebas? If an ameba splits, what you have now is 2 amebas. If one turns into a chicken, doesn't another one have to turn into a rooster before the chicken dies in the same location so that the 2 can hook up? What are the random odds of that? Every creature this has to happen to. Male and female for almost every single living mammal. Each different but needed. And each living thing is dependent on other different living things. Ecology is rather fragile as we know. And all this survived the Big Bang or whatever created the universe (you know it had to be beyond our imagination)? I've got faith, but my faith is not so big as to accept that what I'm seeing out my window came from something that survived the creation of the universe without some logical help.
I think of Evolution like this and yes. . it is Geeky WARNING: STAR TREK REFERENCE Try Explaining to Commander Data that he evolved from an Abacus [or even the Edvac] without any outside help . .or by luck Rocket River
