I go on vacation for five days, I come back, and this thread is still going?

There is nothing inherently wrong about a system of beliefs. No one knows for sure, so can you say someone else is truly wrong? We'll all find out when we die, so enjoy the ride, I say.

What DOES annoy me is the constant, constant, CONSTANT attempt of people of one system of beliefs attempt to impose that system upon others. Christian "missions", for instance. It's one thing to educate and inform people about what you believe in, and it's another to actively "save" (frequently using fear-bait "you're going to hell" sermons as ammo) others. Let people figure it out on their own.

What Feep forgot to mention was those damn athiests trying to impose laws of physics and science upon everyone.

BURN THE WITCHES!

Utilitarianism has many logical flaws. Since we're going to be illogical, I'm going to go ahead and support Divine Command Theory

thank you. i say that because you not only said a little of what you believe, but why you do and you never once went ape shit ranting. you seem like the kind of person who says "this is what i believe, i dont care if you like it... ill still respect what you believe in".

i think tolerance should be somehow ingrained into every single religon because as a species... we've always been seriously lacking in that dept.

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sniffles,
what are the flaws of utilitarianism? and what do you propose is a better code of conduct?

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Utilitarianism is just tricky. I remember learning a bit about it in my Phiolosophy course but really I forgot most of it lol. But I think if I remember correctly Utilitarianism states and for something to be "Good" it needs to be that the most amount of pleasure to the most amount of people comes from whatever that action may be. For something to be "Bad" there would be less pleasure from that action. The 2 main things are pleasure and pain as they're some of the basic human feelings and utilitarianists believe is what does and should drive morals and decisions.

One of the flaws that they proposed in my class was the problem of a surgeon in a hospital. He has 6 patients sitting in front of him that he has to treat. One needs a heart, one needs a liver, the others needs other organs etc. So one day someone comes into the hospital, a healthy person and the doctor thinks "Maybe I should harvest this healthy person's organs and save the lives of those 6 other people." Now from a utilitarianist point of view, the surgeon would be completely justified in doing so. Why? Because it brings about the most pleasure or happiness to the most amount of people. kill 1 to save 6. Going from that, a utilitarianist view would be pretty skewed.

But what brings people pleasure? It doesn't always have to be a surgical decision. But another dillemma is the fact that happiness can't really be measured. You cant get a group of people together and calculate things to maximize happiness for that group. why? Because happiness/pleasure is different for different people. You can't make an equation if a single varibale (Pleasure) has 10000000000 different values. What one person thinks is pleasurable another may not. For example a sadist.

Edit: Now there are arguments for each side on these views.... i'm simply pointing out some of the disputed ones. I don't really claim to know much about Utilitarianism......just posting for discussions sake. Sometimes while posting on message boards I get real scared of starting flame wars lol ^^; so take what I post with a grain of salt and don't think I'm ever trying to post things as FACT. Because I know I could be wrong, and I'd like to be proved wrong. I'm just trying to talk

in the case of the surgeon that you mentioned, the reason the surgeon would not take someone's life to save 6 others is because millions of people would get up in arms (aka be unhappy) because the surgeon would be killing someone. letting sick patients succumb to a natural death is one thing, but taking someone's healthy life away without permission would make the most amount of people the most amount of mad. to make the most amount of people the most amount of happy, he should just let nature run its course.

im a science type person so i think of everything in science terms. i could probably place a value on everything and every emotion i have. but what i cant do is force another person to tell me an accurate value for their feelings. that does seem like a flaw, but when youre dealing with something as subjective as justifying what is good and what isn't good, that flaw will exist for any code of conduct.

you could just state a list of rules, like 10 commandments or school rules, and thats fine but it doesnt really address the WHY of it all, which is what i'm looking for when i smile upon utilitarianism

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Kwechi has defeated me.

What if nobody would know about it? What if it was done in secret?

in that case, the 1 healthy person would probably say fuck utilitarianism and go into personal survival mode. not the nicest choice, just the most likely. but then again utilitarianism doesn't suggest the most likely outcome, just the nicest. what would i do? it probably would depend on how retarded the other 6 people are. if i calculated that i could offer more to the world than those 6 people, i'd probably go into survival mode myself. i could easily come up with 6 people i'd sacrifice myself for, but they wouldn't be just anybody.

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Sorry, totally forgot about this topic.




1) Nature don't work that way, strongest creature get all the goodies while weaker try to survive. Human is after all an animal, if we are excluding god. Scientifical explanation need to give a general rule.

2) It's true human survive better in society, however, a society itself leech other society. Do you really think you could live the live you have if there wasn't underdevelopped country where people working in condition close to slavery existed? Are you being nice to those people?

Being nice is far from being a prerequisite to live in society, only reason to do so is that you can gain mutual advantage with other. And even then, you don't need everyone in the society.





It's not really a problem to me (because that's also what I believe), however, by saying human mind is nothing but a sequence of chemical reaction, you're nothing more than a robot, a bunch of walking matter who walk according to a predeterminate path, despite the freedom impression you're having.

However, it still doesn't scientifically explain or justify a particular beliefs. I could decide I prefer to live like an animal and try taking advantage of the weaker. It would be for the best of our species...keep the weak away and have the strong survive. Anyway, there is already too many human on Earth.

Obviously, there is something morally wrong with what I said above, but following a purely scientifical standpoint, such behavior would be more than justified.







Cosmology: The study of the physical universe. the branch of astrophysics that studies the origin and evolution and structure of the universe
Astrophysics: The branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of stellar phenomena.

There isn't any differences in the way you deal with them, at least, not that I know. Cosmology's hypothesis are harder to prove obviously considering they are usually much farther or distant in the past, but both are considered the same

Anyway, it's true you can base belief on hypothesis (that's what belief are after all), but it's also what religious people are doing to some extent. "God" is the hypothesis to explain the world's creation and personally, I think it's a good one, even if it's a general theory that doesn't explain much.

-No empiric evidence of God
There is no empiric evidence of anything when you talk about the universe. Universe is most likely open (universe expension), and to have an empirical evidence, you need to be in a close universe.

Another problem like I mentioned is matter/antimatter. To create "1" particle of matter, you need to create another particle of antimatter. While antimatter exist, there is pratically none in our universe. If that antimatter is not in our universe, it means it's somewhere else. That itself is a mystery, but it lead us to belief universe isn't close.


-If God created the universe, who created God
While the question is justified, anyone using that as an arguement, and saying "matter exists since the beginning of time" has to rethinks his way of arguing.

Universe itself will never make sense to anyone. Everything point toward it being infinite, and infinity on such level could lead to any possibilities.

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I'm not stopping you to think that, however, saying religion does more harm than good is a lie. While there is always a few individual who don't follow their own religion (ie: priest who abused children), there is a ton of people who end up doing more good than bad. How many religious people went to help in poor country versus how many atheist? I'm convinced way more religious person went. There is a lot of good comming out of religion at time.

Also, it's important to not mix what the religion is teaching and what people are doing. Someone going against his preaching is a liar, but same goes in science. How many scientist recently pretented making clone, but were lying? How many doctor had sexual relation with young boy (a young doctor is going to jail where I live for this reason)? How many fake archeological discovery there was?
What about pharmaceutical company who are trying to get richer in the name of science? Often lying and selling potentially dangerous product? Of course, this is not "science", the same way what you mentionned is not religion, it's simply people with no moral abusing other.


Religions has about the same effect on people than science. There is a lot of good and bad about both, it just depend what you do with it. Hell, it's awesome to be able to light our house with electricity, to know how Earth was formed, but at the same time, chemical product are destroying lake and atmosphere, nuclear warhead are being procuded and other trash we don't want exist in the name of science.

Also, keep in mind many scientifical figures were also religious to some extent. Descartes, Einstein, Newton and many others believed in God (even if it wasn't always a caring God).



Logic alone won't tell you if there is a God or not. There is no way to even get close to an answer. Logical reasoning can eliminate many possibilities, however, it will never confirm one




It has to be equal.
http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Ps/bbs/bbs_antimatter.asp


Personally, I think the black matter in the universe might be the result of the asymetry between matter and antimatter, but it's kinda hard to prove . That could explain universe expansion, black matter and big bang all in one. In any case, the matter/anti matter problem is one of the biggest flaw in current theory.





Moral =/= religion. A religion is a bundles of predeterminate morals, that's what I meant. No one is stopping you from picking the good in every religion and making your if current one do not satisfy you.





They would just find something else to argue about if it wasn't for religion. It would avoid a few war for sure, but remove every religion and you will still have about the same number of war and inegalities.

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About utilitarism, it works wonder...except not. People are and will always be selfish, and just like communist, someone will end up taking advantage of other.


The problem asked is a good one, but can't really be answered. You would need to consider chance of survival of the sick people you saved, how long they will live, how many relatives each person has and many other details. When you take in consideration no one cares about sick people dying except close relative, when everybody is against murdering, the chance it is accepted is slim.

A better exemple would be kamikaze during WW Kill one, but you can save many deaths.



It is in every big religion, people just suck at being tolerant.

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mostly to Kaylia-
Behavior
Thunderstomp & Kaylia are both right, but they are talking about two different concepts. Thunderstomp is referring to why people are good, why people are nice. And he's right, to an extent cooperation is in the best interest of mankind. Kaylia is also correct because the final decision of how to act is at the individual level, and individuals have to decide what is in their best interest. Back to TS, the reason he is also right is because it is usually in the individual's best interest to do what is in the community's best interest.

Kaylia is asking for a general rule, but the subject was "what makes an action good," not, "what behaviors will actually be made." The answer to those two are usually opposite, sadly. If you want a general rule for what is good, refer to utilitarianism. If you want a general rule for what behavior will be made, refer to hedonism. They often can go together quite well. For instance, someone giving to a charity is utilitarian and hedonistic, although it would take a wise brain to see the hedonistic side.

I do believe the actions we make, however complex they may be, are actually the result of the chemicals that make up our bodies. Neurons, hormones, every cell and molecule in our bodies are responsible for the decisions we end up making. The illusion of free choice is wonderful isn't it?

Cosmology
Your definition of cosmology is ok, but the second part is what is concentrated on: the branch of astrophysics that studies the origin, evolution, and structure of the universe. Your definition of astrophysics isn't quite right. Yes it has astro in the name, which means stars, but it isn't limited to stars. Astrophysics covers the structure of everything outside the Earth (including a dabble at the planetary characteristics of the Earth too), and that includes the universe.

I think cosmologists are making two fundamental errors:
#1 They assume everything we can see with telescopes is everything that exists.
#2 They assume the Big Bang "created" matter/everything.

So when scientists say there is too high a ratio of particles to antiparticles, they are forgetting that we can only see a limited portion of the infinite universe. There could just as easily be a conglomerate of antiparticles somewhere outside our field of vision. If that's what you're getting at, I agree.

If God created the universe, who created God?

I would never say matter existed since the beginning of time, unless I made a major typo. I believe matter/energy has existed infinitely in time, and I believe there is no beginning to time.

Religion
Saying religion does more harm than good isn't a lie, nor is it a fact--it's an opinion. I see religion like so:
Good: morals (but you dont need religion for this), purpose (but you dont need religion for this), cultural identity, helps poor
Bad: morals are stronger when they come from yourself, purpose is stronger when it comes from yourself, religion is a waste of time, waste of money more than it helps, philosophically way off the mark, promotes conformity, intrusive, takes over politics, and most of all it causes most people to stop questioning everything and thinking about everything.

I was thinking today, it's a good thing religion is associated with exclusion, racism, sexism, hate, and lack of thought. Because if religion were associated with inclusion, acceptance, love, and intellegence, then it would be a lot harder to fight the awkward theology of gods and souls and heaven and hell.

There have definitely been some f'd up scientists. I won't argue there, and that's why I've been saying all along, the scientific community is what I respect. The scientific community quickly exposes its own errors and reaches for the truth no matter how out of reach it always seems. Sometimes it overreaches, like in cosmology, but it's always a good productive exercise for the brain, and it might even lead to truth by some other avenue of discovery.

Yes, science has produced negatives, though science is also right there telling us what's negative about it and why we shouldn't do it. It's up to us if we want to listen to science as a whole or just listen selectively.

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haha good thing i reread my post because
s e r e n d i p i t y
a word which i actually used,
somehow translates to
" serendipity "

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Well said, I'd write that one down if I were you.

ya i know its IN every religion but i meant a more signifigant role. something like "If thou art intolerant of thine fellow man/woman, thou shalt face a fiery hell with nipple clamps and anal sepage for eternity"

maybe the nipple clamps wouldnt stop people, but anal sepage definately would stop me

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ROFL!

Of all people whisp, i really had a strong feeling that you'd get that word and work it into your posts lol.

I left that in the ban word section as an easter egg 3 months ago lol.

DING DING you win lol

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The mikey's have a plan. Djay isn't all powerful.

LOL

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rofl @whisp and mikey

Being nice isn't always the best option for the society. Actually, it's rarely the best option considering it's not something natural.

Should we euthanasy cripples who cost a lot while bringing almost nothing to our society? Should we pay for old people who are about to die but need a chirurgical intervention? While it's not in community's best interest, there is time where you are being nice for the sake of it. Take any animal species, and make all specimen equal in the hierarchy. There is a good chance (or at least better chance) the species will disappears faster than it would normally


I'm not saying TS is completely wrong, because the reason he stated is why almost everyone believe being nice is better than the opposite. However, I don't think we can say it's a scientifical fact, or even something based on logic. It's because we believe in equality we agree being nice is for the best (otherwise, there won't be any egalities)






If "happiness" is your only criteria to evaluate an action, then yes. However, I do believe there is more than that to the life.



Yes, unless it's not an illusion. There is still many behaviors we don't understand in atoms structure (quantum physics and +). If you take in consideration it's probably infinite in the "small" like it is for the "big" , there is always a chance it's random and not predeterminate.






Well, it was a copy paste from dictionary.com In any case, I know what astrophysics is after studying in that domain for 1 year (4 years ago). My physics is starting to get far behind me, but I still remember the basis...I hope. I'm not even sure why we are arguing about that considering it's off topic, and we are just playing with word todescribe the science that study stuff up in the sky.

Stellar phenomena refer to almost everything in space if it was what you mean, not star alone. And even if it was not, it would be indirectly implied considering universe is nothing but a bunch of star (anything but H², and maybe He come from dead star.





Saying we can only see a part of the universe is almost wrong considering we can see up to 400m years after the big bang. The existence of a conglomerate of antiparticles would be noticeable, especially when you calculate universe mass.






How can it exist since the beginning of time? Every science facts have a cause, and an explanation. Saying it was always there lack both.


That said, universe did had a 0 time. In the earliest time, it was infinitely small and time was infinite (1 minutes was equal to infinites minutes...or was it the opposite >_>). Universe expansion consist of the space/time expanding, and not just matter getting farther from the center (it's an indirect result of expansion).

Of course, there is always the likely possibility there is something bigger, but we will have ot answer the same question over and over. Saying it was always there don't answer the question, it just avoid it.




Considering you seem to like utilitarism, it would be "easy" to make a list of pro and cons, and evaluate if religion is a good thing or not. Unless utilitarism is flawed and can't be applied to anything





Woooow....don't start saying thing like that. I would assume someone who follow science would be able to make difference between society problematics and their real cause. Religious environement always (almost) preach against those things, even if they arent always perfect.





You think so eh? It's usually another community of scientist that will expose the error, not the scientist alone who will do it.


In any case, I was thinking today, it's a good thing science can be associated with exclusion, racism, sexism, hate, and lack of thought. Because if sciences were associated with inclusion, acceptance, love, and intelligence, then it would be a lot harder to convince an atheist there is a possibilities sciences isn't always the way to go.


Racist: http://library.flawlesslogic.com/iq.htm
Sexism: http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanheral ... 005827.asp
Hate: Weapons
Lack of thought: Ironically, while 0.1% of the society are scientist, other 99.9% will only use the benefit resulting from science, while slowly letting their brain melt.





Yes, but only when the person teaching science has strong belief, otherwise, he might just be lying to you like anyone. Science isnt totally corrupted, but same goes for religion.

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Just because a person is economically worthless doesn't mean they're worthless. It's not about being nice; it's about being "good," based on what is in the best interest of society. If people believe in equality, they believe equality is in the best interest of society, meaning equality will bring the most good to the most amount of people, that includes people whose only gain is seeing others happy.

I'd say happiness, aka pleasure, measured in + and -, negative being displeasure, is one of only two base units of determining what is in our best interest. The other is reproduction.


I just don't agree with this mindset, which is prevalent but contested in astrophysics. What makes you think the Big Bang defines the edge of the universe? It could just as easily be a local and recent occurrence, past which we still cannot see.


Again I don't think you even get what I'm saying. I don't believe in a beginning of time. When I say matter/energy has always existed, I don't mean "since the beginning of time." To me, there is no beginning of time. And infinity is definitely a viable answer, not "avoiding" questions. You don't have to have a poof beginning of time to reach a conclusion. The "every science fact has a cause" as you said, is reason enough to conclude there is no uncaused first cause.


That's why I said "community."

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How is this tread still going?

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If only you all had a large Proton-Enhanced Nuclear Induction Spectroscopy machine like I do.

Rofl, that pic is awesome.






It's the whole point of Einstein's relativity, matter and energy create space time. That's why there is edge to it (It's not 3d edge, those edge are definied in 4 dimensions). Saying the opposite goes again science and everything we are suposed to believe.


If by Universe, you mean what might have existed before (Multiverse), or something like Alternate universe (it could be a result of quantum physics), it's possible.
However, it's not scientific to assume anything about them considering our current physics make everything outside our universe equal to square root of -1.

While imaginary number are often used, don't pretend it's a "logic" explanation considering sqrt -1 makes my calculator crash.






While I might not understand what you're saying, I doubt it works with our current science. It's nothing more than a belief similar to people suggesting the existence of a supreme force.

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