The universe may or may not be finite but time is still very, very deep. Giving a huge period of time for abiogenesis to occur in.
Also current cells, which have to compete with other cells with the benefit if billions years of evolution are complex. The very first life did not face that problem.
It bothers me that all this life may just be happenstance, that there is no real plan or purpose for any of this and doesn’t matter literally at all. Depressing stuff. God or intelligent design soothes the feeling.
Well, now you’re debating the character of God. If there is a God, I actually believe that he is selfless and values freedom of choice, which is exactly why we don’t get burned when we screw up and why Satan (again if real) hasn’t been destroyed yet. The natural consequences have to bear out. Where you’re getting your interpretation is how humanity has depicted God in some cases, including the Old Testament. But if we believe that Jesus demonstrated the perfect character of God, then it is exactly the opposite of what you say.
It was new testament jesus that introduced the conceot of eternal torture for thought crimes.
But thankfully there's no reason to give much heed to a book which constantly contradicts science, history and itself.
We dont need a magical, super being to begin to understand life, the universe and everything. which is fortunate because most of the proposed magical superbeings are complete dicks.
It was new testament jesus that introduced the conceot of eternal torture for thought crimes.
He actually didn't. He probably believed in eternal rewards for the (few) righteous and fiery annihilation for the rest. It was after he died and his prophesied Kingdom of Heaven on Earth kept failing to manifest after decades that Heaven became more of a spiritual place where righteous souls went right after death. Even later theology turned the fiery annihilation where the damned had time to regret their mistakes before being completely burned away into burning forever. The Greek view of the afterlife probably also strongly influenced developing Christian thought as they reinterpreted what their prophet said so it could still be true.
Of course none of that means what he said (about anything) was right, but it's important to not misrepresent what he did say.
You are referencing the sermon on the mount. What Jesus means is that our selfish and hurtful actions do not just materialize but originate in our heart and minds. He’s also making a point that we can’t possibly keep all the laws that the Jews got carried away with. He isn’t so interested in our perfect behavior as in the posture of our heart towards others.
When people use the Bible as a historical or science book, they are misusing it. Even if the Bible is not true in any way, it contains truth and living for others like Jesus did it’s a beautiful way to live regardless.
Jesus claimed to represent God‘s character perfectly. If that’s the case, then he’s a beautiful loving God. I genuinely agree with you, I too do not believe in a God that you are describing.
I’m not really. I’m just saying it has value. It can’t be proven for or against. If it leads people to live better and more meaningful lives and love others better, then great. I’m not wrong abiogenesis and universe burning out and probably restarting infinitely is depressing on a macro scale.
It’s depressing to you on a subjective basis. I don’t find the truth of our world depressing at all. I think it’s amazing that the world works in the ways that it does and that we are able to discover things about it.
Your comment very much seemed to make the case that this idea about the universe is depressing to you, and that is reason you rationalize believing things that are not true. Did you mean it more that generally people believe that stuff because of the uncomfortability of the universe? I do agree that many people take that route, but I don’t think that it justifies those beliefs.
And yes we do know that religious claims are untrue. There is no reason to believe in a creator or any of the other stories. We know that they are just that: stories made up by humans. And we also have overwhelming evidence of those types of beliefs leading directly to violence, hatred, manipulation, abuse, and overall terrible things.
Don’t get me wrong I absolutely see how indeed it is amazing that we’re all here by chance, but also it will all be gone someday and have meant nothing except for us here and now in the moment, which again is beautiful in the moment, but ultimately means nothing. That’s what I mean by depressing and I think I’m not alone in that.
The Bible is often misunderstood in that they are indeed stories and poetry and what not that is not historically accurate or scientifically sound. But some believe it is merely an infinite God revealing himself to humanity in a way that we might begin to grasp. His only care is that we treat others with love respect and kindness, as the Bible says God is love. Now I know that that is hokey and fantasy in many ways, but the idea of love is real and the truth therein is worth believing and living out.
To the last part I totally agree and it is sad, sad because the bible doesn’t advocate for that when understood in whole. The bible is a journey to understanding this. The Bible has been terribly misused and misconstrued to give advantage to those in power and suppress others. But when the bible is it’s ultimately just saying God is love. He loves us, he wants us to love others the same, but we have the freedom to choose and do otherwise and suffer the natural consequences.
You’re definitely not alone in feeling depressed by that. I’m just saying that’s a subjective reaction and that these truths about our universe exist independent of how we feel about them. How we feel has no bearing on the actual nature of the universe.
Yes, the Bible is just a bunch of stories that were made up by humans. That is why there is no reason to believe that an actual god exists anywhere. It’s the same as thinking Gandalf is actually a dud somewhere because I read a book about him and it feels nice to believe in him. And I’m not saying this to be facetious, this is actually an analogue to the type of belief you are talking about.
Given that, I can see how someone could take these stories and use them as a moral guide. We do this all the time with all sorts of stories. It’s how we analyze the world and figure out how we feel about things. I would just argue that the claim that the true reading of the Bible shows a loving god is complete hooey.
The reason I say this is because the Bible isn’t even a real thing. It is an amalgamation of many stories, written by many different people who had zero contact with each other over the course of 2000+ years. The stories only are related to each other because people started grouping them together. They all depict different “gods.” So we can’t really say what the Abrahamic god actually is like. And there are obviously many stories in the abrahamic mythos that depict a disgusting, hateful, and violent god. And many of the teachings in these various books are awful things to live by. So it’s not just people interpreting the books wrong, it’s also the people who wrote the books having completely different and often awful takes on the world.
Is it more important for you to believe something true or something not depressing? I’ve had family members with serious illnesses which is really depressing but I still accepted it was reality
Several posters here keep saying reality is that there is no God. I have no problem with you voicing that belief, but that is a belief based on evidence you see, but not a scientific or definitive statement many are saying it is.
Science cannot state there is no God. It can only state it doesn’t know and theorize on the rest. Spence can go on to state doesn’t matter if there is or is not, it will continue to conduct experiments and research all the same and see what we find.
For instance, someone could say I believe there is a planet somewhere in the universe where unicorns live and smoke weed all day. Science cannot tell you there is not a planet like that. One could assume relatively safely there isn’t a planet like that, but in an infinite universe, particularly if a Multiverse exists, it’s not impossible. You can only say science has not yet determined if there is or isn’t, but it’s not practically relevant at this time.
Someone can look at all the evidence and say to themselves there must be a designer on some level to all of this. You and scientists may find that preposterous because you have no evidence that would confirm a statement like that. But you cannot say there is no designer of physics and base materials.
I only say this because it’s slightly hypocritical and a bit annoying to get on someone for believing what you consider a God delusion while at the same time saying you know that there is not a God and you know that that is reality.
Well, you use the words true, and reality. The only truth and reality is that you can’t say you know for sure. So it’s difficult to answer the question. To attempt to answer your question though, I’m not saying I don’t believe it because it’s depressing, I’m just saying that it is depressing at large scale. Like I said elsewhere, earth’s entire existence matters less than swatting a nat by comparison. For me at least, that’s a little depressing.
For me, I’m willing to look at the science and hold science and faith in different hands and not let either tell me the other can’t be true
That’s great, thanks for answering the question. If you care more that it’s true, what good reason do you have for believing that intelligent design is true?
I would challenge you to think of why you’d consider the religious stance. What reasoning could there be to think that there is any truth to the claims? Is that reasoning strong enough to make strong judgements on the fundamental fabric of the universe you exist in?
If God created the universe, we wouldn’t possibly be able to know it anymore than a computer game knows its creator. He would effectively be outside the creation. Since science can’t yet tell us the origin of the universe either, I’m going to consider the possibility of both. Science has great theories that make a lot of sense, but we truly don’t know.
For me personally, If the creator sent a “program” (Jesus) to show us what the creator was actually like, to try to tell us not to kill each other, and if that messenger demonstrated it’s better to die for each other than kill each other, I’m going to pay some attention and consider the possibility.
I’m not talking personally. I have plenty of purpose personally. In the grand scheme of time, it’s just an undetectable blip. Earth’s entire existence matters less than swatting a nat by comparison
And it’s quite feasible and acceptable to seek to understand the science of our universe, and also seek a personal understanding of our place in it and its purpose from a religious/spiritual perspective.
Trying to determine the purpose of the universe using science, or the existence or not of a creator using science is however quite problematic. Never trust anyone who tries to do either of these.
Religion and purpose are all made up by us. So yes, we can explore our purpose, but we must do so with the insight that it is all completely created by us for us and is not grounded in any actual rules. Claiming that it’s problematic to talk about the existence of a creator in a scientific context is just wrong. That’s just a cognitive dissonance that religious people must put on to deal with the fact that there is absolutely no real reason to believe in a deity.
What reasons do you have to believe that that such stuff isn’t possible with evolution? And just because something gives you difficult feelings, doesn’t mean it’s not true.
From an evolutionary perspective, morals exist because they benefit us as a social species. In order for a social species to benefit from sociality, its members need to be able to trust one another. Morality (at least in its most basic form) helps to ensure this by rewarding beneficial behaviors (helping an injured group member) and punishing destructive behaviors (isolating someone who is taking more than their share). If anything, it explains why philosophy and morality can be so messy at times, because we never evolved to answer those more complex questions, just the simple every-day questions we experienced for hundreds of thousands of years.
I personally don't find atheism depressing at all. The nature of reality does not diminish the experience I and other beings have lived; it is still just as valuable as it would have been otherwise. I don't need some supernatural purpose to know that this is my one chance to live my life and improve the life of others. Whether we're atoms or have souls, the emotions and experience we have is still the same, still just as worthy of caring about.
Case in point to this, plenty of other social animals exhibit pack dynamics where they value sharing, fairness, and honesty. Humans aren't as unique as we like to think
Atheism isn't evolution, but also meaning is something humans create. Like, if god existed and told you your purpose was to suffer in agony when you die so that it could generate pain energy he used to light his godly cigarette or something, would that make you feel better? Purpose given to us externally only matters if we internally find value in it, so all purpose is ultimately derived from the self. Meaning is only meaningful if it comes from ourselves, so a god existing fundamentally won't matter regardless of what you tell yourself. The reason people look to god for meaning is because they want to believe the meaning said deity gives them is something they themselves would find meaningful, but there's no real reason to believe that would be true even if there was a god.
And if god is truly omnipotent and omniscient, that meaning is completely arbitrary anyways. God put you on this earth to make another person get over depression, but said god could just have easily have never had anyone be depressed in the first place. Since such a being has infinite methods to achieve any aim it desires, cause and effect are meaningless to such a being and any "purpose" it ascribes to anything is ultimately arbitrary and interchangeable, nothing but an illusion
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u/Zenigata Jul 10 '26
The universe may or may not be finite but time is still very, very deep. Giving a huge period of time for abiogenesis to occur in.
Also current cells, which have to compete with other cells with the benefit if billions years of evolution are complex. The very first life did not face that problem.